The Afterlife
by TeresaAmaliaJane
Summary: Nine months with a healed Jane, a pregnant Lisbon and their five-year-old son Joseph, who wants nothing more than for his parents to fall in love. It may sound kind of fluffy, but it really isn't. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello again! Okay, first of all, massive gratitude to Jaimie255 for inspiring me to write this. Sorry because I know you said humour, and I know you said a girl, but the story just wouldn't stop evolving-it still IS evolving! If I stick to the plan I've got now, it'll be a miracle. But if you hadn't given me that first idea, then this story would never have taken shape, so thank you. ANYWAY, this'll be about ten chapters, give or take, and in no way follows anything that happens on TV because my imagination wouldn't quit. I hope you enjoy it :)**

**I don't own The Mentalist, but I'm just so excited that Spirited is coming back that I actually don't really mind.**

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><p><strong>Prologue: Five years ago.<strong>

_Scream._

Tick, tock. Tick. Tock.

The seconds were stealing his sanity.

Across the other side of the waiting room Cho read an evidently much-loved novel, Rigsby bounced a tiny ball against the side of a cabinet and Van Pelt had fastened her gaze to the flickering television in the corner. Jane, however, hadn't the composure to do anything except clench his fists and will himself to stay in his chair.

Tick, tock.

_Scream._

The shrieking slashed into him-as it had many times before-and for a moment he couldn't remember the reason why he wasn't beside her. Every inch of him burnt with desperation, with a hatred for the room he was in and a blind longing for the room in which he wasn't: and yet he couldn't move, because when he closed his eyes he remembered the certainty in her stance as she'd gathered the unit together two days ago and delivered her blunt ultimatum-'_if anyone takes one step inside the delivery room, they're fired_'. The memory dipped and swayed behind his eyelids, and though Jane cared little for his job, the fact that this was what Lisbon wanted was an altogether different matter and a factor large enough to keep him frozen.

But his resolve was slipping. And as the minutes trailed on, he found himself more and more unwilling to fight for it.

When she screamed again Jane had to physically restrain himself from standing up, his fingers tightly clenched around the arms of the chair, and began to monitor his breathing in an effort to calm himself-one breath, two, three…but the harsh ticking of the clock was faster, and eventually he was inhaling and exhaling all within the space of a second to keep in time, which he doubted was a good thing. And so he turned his attention to the rest of the room, but Van Pelt's worried face only increased his nerves, and the _thump-ca-plunk _of the ball against the cabinet repeated in his head until it had formed one great mass of loathing aimed at Rigsby. Jane locked his jaw even tighter, and his leg involuntarily began to twitch: before he could notice, though, it dawned on him that the gap between screams was the longest it had been, and all his senses leapt with sudden hope. He sat straighter in his chair and waited, ears strained, for a cry more high-pitched and painless than Lisbon's…

When his hopes vanished for maybe the fifth time that morning, so did the last of his willpower. After all, Lisbon was hormonal and stubborn: how could she possibly know what she wanted?

'Jane, don't.' But Grace's warning only skimmed over him, as he stood abruptly and headed for the hallway; with every step, he felt his nerves tangle together until they were choking him, fit to burst under his skin, and when he reached her room he was shaking. A middle-aged nurse emerged from behind the door, and smiled.

'Perfect timing,' she informed him wearily. 'She's asked for you.' Jane would have found a way into the room no matter what she'd said, but didn't tell her this: instead, he only nodded impatiently and balanced on the longest second of his life whilst room was made for him to pass.

She was propped up on her elbows, legs bent and spread and covered by a thin white blanket for modesty's sake, her face almost distorted with pain, her hair everywhere; around her, two nurses had chosen their places to mumble encouragement with tired faces. And suddenly-without explanation-Jane's nerves untangled themselves in his throat, giving way to an immense wave of calm that allowed him to stop shaking, to breathe. He had, after all, been in this situation before: he knew what to do. Lisbon's vision seemed so blurred by tears or sweat or both that she didn't notice him until he'd crawled onto the bed behind her: softly resting her back against his front, his legs circling her, Jane reached around and tenderly pulled her fringe out of her eyes.

'You're fired, Jane,' she managed to snarl in between ragged breaths.

'You asked me in here,' he defended lightly. 'I've done nothing wrong.'

'No, not for that, for…' her sentence blended smoothly into another scream as the urge to push surged again, and when Jane grasped her right hand she nearly cut his circulation off. Many moments later, when she'd regained control of her breathing, she continued the argument: '…for letting me do this…I don't want to be a Mom anymore, I can't…'

'Bit late for that, don't you think?' Lisbon didn't respond to this, her concentration on the evenness of her breathing, and Jane sensed that now was not the time for banter. The fingers on his left hand threaded through hers so that he now held both her hands; in the same moment, the nurse who had greeted him at the door announced that they were 'one push away', and he felt every nerve in her body instantaneously seize up. From his viewpoint just behind her shoulder, he saw exhausted tears fall down her face and wished desperately that he could shoulder some of her pain, just enough to give her back her strength and make it all end.

'You're almost there, okay?' he murmured into her ear. 'He's nearly here, you _do_ want to be his Mom and he's nearly here.'

'How do you kn…'

'Because you told me, Reese. Every day for the past eight months.' Almost immediately, he felt the change in her at the sound of her nickname-breaths a little more even, pressure on his hands a little less suffocating as she remembered her reasons, and he gave her the time she needed.

A few seconds later, her grip retightened.

And then she started to scream again, but this time it didn't stop, an endless knife of sound that sliced through Jane until there was nothing left of him and yet he held on anyway…riding the pain with her, shuddering as she did, wanting it to be over, all over…then, suddenly, the screaming ended and she collapsed backwards into him, half crying, half gasping for air. Gently, he pressed the side of his head against hers and listening to her heartbeat coursing through her ear, gradually slowing, and he could have sat with her like this forever if a new sound had not reached his ears-the high-pitched cry of innocence that he had been listening for all morning.

Jane had just enough time to lift his head, and suddenly there was a wet, slippery baby boy in Lisbon's arms, blinking up at them with familiar emerald eyes.

And everything else stopped.

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><p><strong>Please review! I'd love to know if I'm doing anything wrong, or right for that matter.<strong>

**Second chapter's half-done, I'm pretty excited about it. Haha. **

**TAJ :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi again! Personally, I'm very proud of my two-day-updating-record, which I have officially achieved with this chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed; this one's set in the present day and most, if not all of the following chapters will have about a month between them. I should probably explain that the name of this fic, 'The Afterlife', doesn't mean life after death but life after Red John, for Jane. **

**Please enjoy! I hope you like Seph, he's my creation but everything else belongs to Bruno.**

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><p><strong>Present Day: February 16th<strong>

'Okay. So I like to keep my mail nice and neat, in pairs.'

Jane sat silently at the CBI kitchen's small round table, patience keeping him still whilst the cards were dealt into groups of two and the last pairless card was held up by a small hand. 'But this card,' Seph announced, 'is junk mail. Nobody wants that, so it can go over here.' He placed the card-an Ace of Diamonds-as far away from the pairs as he could reach. 'And now, I'm going to separate the mail into two piles. One for you and one for me.'

'That's nice of you,' Jane commented and got a giggle in reply: with slightly fumbling fingers, Seph took one card from each pair and built a pile, then gathered the remaining cards together. 'Choose a pile and put your hand over it,' he instructed and Jane let his gaze hover equally over both piles, pondering the pros and cons, taking far too much time to decide.

'_Daaaaadddddd…_' Jane laughed and covered the nearest pile with his hand; Seph adopted the other, and then addressed the lone card at the edge of the table, the Ace of Diamonds. 'I'll take the junk mail into my pile'-and he did-'but I've decided that I don't really want it. So I'll just give it to you.' Dramatically, he tapped his own hand and then Jane's before taking away his hand and counting out his 'mail' in pairs exactly. When Jane uncovered his own pile, there was an odd amount of cards. He now owned the junk mail, the lone card.

In the back of Jane's mind, a self-righteous voice pointed out that making odd and even piles of cards had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with discretion, but he painted on confusion anyway.

'How'd you do that?' he asked. Seph only smiled knowingly and tapped the side of his nose, an action his mother had taught him and one Jane found peculiar, an old habit on a five-year-old. He was about to begin the routine begging-'_please_, would you just tell me how you did it?'-when behind Seph there was a sudden movement and he looked up to Van Pelt at the door, amused. But behind the friendly mask there were deep bags under bloodshot eyes, an exhaustion which had begun to look permanent after the birth of her twins. She'd been on maternity leave for two months now, so her presence at the CBI was rare but always a welcome surprise.

'Hey, Grace,' he greeted warmly, 'what brings you here?'

'Just came to say hi while Mom's babysitting.' Her gaze swept the room. 'Do you know where Wayne is? Or anyone, for that matter? It's a ghost town out there.'

'He went for afternoon pizza with Cho. Lisbon's in interrogation.' And then, when she yawned, 'Still not sleeping properly, huh.'

'No, not really,' she sighed. 'I mean, Ben is fine, but Lucy only does an hour at a time, and then she wakes him up crying…' her words trailed off, before she turned to Seph with a sudden cheeriness in an attempt to distract herself from the fatigue. 'Hey there, Junior.' She often called him this. 'You fooled him yet?'

Seph turned to Jane with a question in his eyes, and when he announced that his son was 'turning into a first-class magician' the young boy beamed. Jane was about to ask him if he wanted to try the trick on Van Pelt, wondering if she'd fall for it, but Lisbon appeared suddenly beside her and he lost his words.

She was dressed in pants and a green blouse which accented her eyes, her raven waves out and framing her cheekbones, her frustrated expression only making her more beautiful. As always happened when she entered the room without warning, Jane wondered why it had taken getting rid of Red John for him to see her, properly see her, and as always he decided that he didn't want an answer: to be fair, she wasn't the only aspect of his life that was more brightly coloured than before, but somehow she still stood out. He watched her greet Grace, talk to her briefly-the two had grown close since both becoming mothers-and averted his eyes the moment he realised that he was staring, before it grew into emotions that he couldn't control, and maybe didn't want to.

When he glanced up next Grace had disappeared, and Lisbon-her frustration now hidden-was listening to Seph's account of his day at school, which had finished an hour ago. It was an account that Jane had already heard.

'…and then Ricky told Miss Bryson that he didn't do his sums because he thought maths was un-_ness_-idary! And she gave him detention, Mom!'

'See, now aren't you glad I made you do your sums?' She smiled, then said to Jane in annoyance, 'Sanders still won't confess. He's driving me mad.'

'Don't worry, Reese,' he told her. 'He's an egotistical attention-seeker, he wants to take the credit for murder even more than you want him to. Give it time.' The nickname softened Lisbon as it always did, but suddenly a thought occurred to her and she glanced at Seph, then back. _Now? _she mouthed, and after a moment Jane nodded: when a nervous grin spread across her face, a deep warmth rushed down his spine and again he looked away before the feeling grew.

'Oh, and at lunch time we were playing…'

'I'm sure it's a great story, honey,' Lisbon interrupted gently, 'but right now Dad and I have something to tell you.' She took a seat at the table, and as expectant silence fell Jane saw that she looked almost nervous, clearing her throat, her gaze flickering from her son to him and back again. Seph had locked his eyes on her, a single playing card still in his hands.

'Well,' she began, 'what we have to say…I mean,' she wrung her hands, 'you're going to be getting…' In his mind, Jane almost laughed: if only Sanders in interrogation could see her now, stammering for words, so unlike the fearless cop she'd surely been.

'Mom,' Seph stopped her, 'you're making no sense.' She looked exasperated, her eyes once again drifting to Jane but this time in pleading. He could feel a smirk coming on, but pushed it back down and leant forward in his seat.

'Seph, what she's trying to say is that we're having another baby.'

There was a long, frozen moment, and then-'Really?' Jane nodded, and the very same grin-unexpected but contagious-that had spread across Lisbon's face now spread across Seph's, a happiness that made it impossible for Jane not to smile as he squealed and punched the air. 'Jesus _Christ_,' he yelled, 'that's _awesome_!'

'JOSEPH! Language!' But Lisbon was smiling too, and so her deprecating words had little effect: Jane, meanwhile, was waiting for that inevitable question, the one Seph always asked whenever anything at all relevant happened…

'Wait, does this mean you're boyfriend and girlfriend now?'

It was only a slight hesitation, but long enough for Jane that he was not quite able to meet her gaze when she answered, 'No, honey, we're not.' And it would have been an awkward silence to follow if Seph had not replied, 'Oh, okay,' before his previous excitement once again overtook him and he ran out of the room, still squealing. Out of sight, they heard him yell, 'Aunt Grace, guess _what_?'

'He didn't take that very well,' Jane commented sarcastically.

'No, not at all,' Lisbon dryly replied. 'I think we just ruined his life.' She said nothing else and the silence that could have been slightly tense was now comfortable, easy, a result of their no longer needing to prove anything to each other, to partake in those opinionated arguments that Jane had once thrived on. It was a co-existence that five years ago he'd been too blind to imagine, let alone hope for, and yet the chastity of it all still bound him with an immense sadness; after all, conceiving a sibling for Seph had not been a night of love and new beginnings, but of endings. Lisbon's younger brother Andy had died of cancer three days before, and after the funeral she'd needed not a relationship of any kind, but comfort. He'd been all too willing to hold her when she cried, kiss her pain away, well aware that this fragment of intimacy might be the last they'd ever share, imprinting each and every touch into the back of his mind so that he'd never forget.

And so, in this moment, what Jane wanted more than anything was to be able to take Lisbon's hand, pull her close and celebrate the life they'd made, but he couldn't. He would never be strong enough to handle the suffocation in her eyes if he did, the panic at having her boundaries broken by an ex-madman, the fear of falling.

Because he may have meant everything to her on that one night, but morning had brought with it many more things to look at, and nearly all of them more bright and beautiful than he could ever be.

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><p><strong>Please review to let me know if you liked it, or even if you hated it. Thanks for reading!<strong>

**TAJ :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Happy New Year! Okay, this chapter is set three three weeks after the last one, and the next chapter will skip ahead in time as well. I'll do my best to make it clear what happened in those missing weeks. Also, I couldn't find anywhere to include this fact so I'll write it here instead, to clarify things-Jane doesn't live with Lisbon and Seph, he still lives in the city in some sort of apartment. After all, Jane and Lisbon aren't together.**

**Sorry for the long AN. Onward!**

**Bruno owns it.**

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><p><strong>March 21st (Five Weeks Later)<strong>

Lisbon had never really wanted to be a mother.

She'd often wondered if her adolescence, spent taking care of her brothers, had turned her against the idea, or if it had been ingrained in her from the beginning, part of her infrastructure. Either way, there had been mention of many titles in her life plan-Agent, Senior Agent, even District Attorney at one point-but never once Mom: when the title came, though, it had slipped on as easily as if she'd dreamt of it her whole life. Seph had gazed up at her and Jane with those big, green eyes and, just like that, life had given Lisbon back her hope.

Pregnancy, though, she didn't like at all. It wasn't the hormones, or the clothes that she'd stretched and ruined, or even the morning sickness: no, above all these things it was the _birth _she hated most of all, the promise of another endless period of agony looming on the horizon, a dark premonition in her otherwise cloudless sky. If she thought about it too much she was probably likely to develop a real phobia of labour, and so she let Seph's voice pull her back to the busy hum of the street and the whirring of the cars as they passed.

'Connie, _sit_!' Lisbon looked over to where he was tying the puppy to a post, her black Labrador coat shining from the bath they'd given her that morning. Connie had been Seph's present on his fifth birthday, nine months ago, and on any other day she would be locked in the car, if Lisbon hadn't had the sudden urge to go for a family walk. It barely mattered, though, since she and Seph only lived five minutes away; her previous apartment had been far too small for any child, let alone a boy, and she hadn't been able to resist the charm of the cosy old cottage on the outskirts of the city.

'Let me do it, honey,' she told him after a moment, and bent down to untangle the loopy mess he'd made and fix a proper knot. When Connie looked up at her with sorrowful eyes, she murmured, 'Sorry Con, it's only the supermarket. We'll be half an hour, tops,' and scratched her behind her ear. She began to whine as they walked off, and Seph slowed down, as if to turn around, but Lisbon took his hand and pulled him gently away.

Once inside the supermarket they shopped with relative speed, for them, Seph doing his usual five-year-old 'can I have everything in the store, Mom? Because you're simply _made_ of money and you've got nothing else to spend it on…' But she usually granted most of his wishes, unable to resist those eyes, and today was no exception. Lisbon imagined that Seph would all too easily turn into the spoilt kid, if it wasn't for his Dad's rather harsh tactic of teaching him chess by beating him at it: it was odd, really, that she and Jane balanced each other out perfectly as parents when they clashed on most other things. She was too proud to tell him so, but she really was so thankful that he was there during the day, swapping his afternoon naps for collecting Seph from school, and entertaining him whilst she did her job. Granted, his insomnia had disappeared almost completely, but it hadn't stolen her surprise that he, of all people, had stayed.

But Lisbon wasn't naïve; she knew that Seph wasn't the only reason he stayed. She saw the way he looked at her, as if she was the only thing in the room; felt the lingering of his skin against hers when he handed her something, as if he wanted to touch her more but couldn't. And she supposed that she should like it: after all, wasn't this what every woman wanted, to be put on a pedestal of someone else's making? But all it did was make everything uncomfortable. Every time he called her Reese, half of her heart melted but the other half panicked, added yet another brick to the wall she'd been building around herself her whole life. She didn't want to hurt him-God knew he'd break if he got hurt again-but she didn't want to hurt herself, either, trap herself in a relationship she didn't want to be in, just to see him smile.

They were Seph's parents; that was what they were, and they would be parents again in seven months. She couldn't see why they had to be anything more.

Lisbon was lurched back to reality by a gasp, remembered she was pushing a trolley down a supermarket aisle, and then suddenly heard a shout behind her: 'Auntie Reese!' Then a girl's voice: '_Stop it_, Iz! Stop running, Daddy said not to!' She turned around to see her four-year-old nephew Isaac hurtling up the aisle toward her, closely followed by his older sister, and they would have ran past her in their enthusiasm if she hadn't stopped them.

'Hello, Auntie Reese!' Izzy grinned, but before she could even open her mouth to reply he had turned to Seph and was informing him excitedly of some television show he'd watched last night, their closeness in age making their friendship inevitable from the start. Lisbon turned to her oldest niece, who looked worried.

'Hi, Renae,' she said, 'where's your Dad?'

She sighed. 'Probably three aisles behind us, now. He said not to let Izzy get too far ahead, but he just started _running_, and I couldn't stop him, and now I'm going to get in _trouble_…' She was far too mature for an eight-year-old, something Lisbon had learnt very quickly.

'He's definitely a fast one,' she agreed.

'I'm faster than anyone at school, Auntie Reese!' Izzy cut in. 'I can beat the fourth-graders!'

'I'm sure you can,' she smiled, even though Izzy had stopped listening again: her smile then widened when she saw James pushing a loaded trolley up the aisle, his angelic six-month-old in the strap-in seat. He broke into a grin when he saw her.

'Reese! Seph! You came to the party!'

'Didn't know there _was_ one, Jim, I can't believe you didn't invite us.' Still smiling, he pulled her close for a brotherly hug and in her ear he asked softly, 'You doing okay?' A painful pang of grief hit her, and for not the first time that week Lisbon's mind went back to Andy's funeral, to the past year and a half of watching and waiting for the end.

'I'm okay,' she reassured him. 'You?' She felt him nod, and as they broke apart her eyes unknowingly searched for a welcome distraction, and found the baby. 'Hey there, Celie,' she cooed and the tiny thing giggled a melody, her large brown eyes filled with delight. Gazing up at Lisbon with an innocence that only a small child knew how to achieve: an innocence that had been in Seph's eyes once, before Jane had contaminated him by teaching him how to pickpocket. Her hand trailed to rest on her stomach, on the slight bump she'd hidden under a flowing shirt.

'She's getting more adorable every day, Jim,' she told him, and when he didn't reply she glanced up. He'd found a bag of lollipops in her trolley and was staring at them. 'What?' she asked, even though she knew perfectly well what his mind was piecing together and her insides were jumping in anticipation. He gave her a suspicious look, intense, and even more so when he saw the hand on her stomach.

'The last time you bought lollipops,' he said slowly, 'you were pregnant with Seph. You nearly bought the place out.' There was a clear question shining in his eyes, and when she couldn't handle the expectation anymore, and smiled, an enormous grin lit up his face.

'Holy _shit_, really? Are you?' She nodded, her grin matching his for size and he stepped forward to engulf her in another hug, this time much more bone-crushing than before. 'For God's sake, Reese,' he exclaimed, 'Why didn't you _tell_ me?'

'Oh, _I'm sorry_, I'll be sure to put it in the monthly newsletter next time.'

'Wait, does this mean…'

'_No._ Jane and I are _not _together, and we never will be.' It came out a little harsher than intended, but she couldn't help it-she was already so sick of the question.

'But it's his baby, yeah?'

'Yeah,' she admitted, 'but…'

'But _nothing_!' He was grinning again, this time wickedly. 'When's the wedding?'

'Shut up, James.' It suddenly occurred to Lisbon why she'd slipped so comfortably, all those years ago, into the banter that her and Jane had shared. Her and James had been playing out an almost identical relationship since they were little, since the time when she'd called him Jimmy and he'd called her Rooster, the result of a certain Christmas at their cousins' farm that she'd mentally repressed. Tommy had lived in Iowa since before Seph was born-he'd flown across for the funeral, but that was it-so she was the closest to him of all her brothers, had been her whole life. Long ago, when she'd lived in the same world as her father, Jim had often defended her and got the beating instead. She would never stop loving him for that.

'Mom, Seph said at her elbow, his hand cupped around his mouth like he was telling her a secret, 'is Uncle James allowed to know about the baby?'

'Yes, honey,' she smiled, 'I just told him.'

'Excited, Seph?' James asked, and the young boy nodded energetically. 'Yeah, it _is _pretty exciting, isn't it. Watch out, though,' he added jokingly, 'once the baby comes you'll have to start sharing Mom and Dad. I could teach you to juggle, if you like, that'll get their attention.' Before anything else could be said, Celie began to cry. Jim checked his watch and his face registered mild alarm. 'Better keep going,' he declared. 'Can't have Bunny hungry,' he made a face at her and her crying trailing off, 'and Julie swore she'd do painful things to me if I didn't have everyone back home within forty minutes.'

'Yeah, we better get going too, the dog would be nearly suicidal by now. Good to see you though, Jim.'

'You too.' He kissed her on the cheek and when he was at a safe distance, all three kids by his side, he yelled back over his shoulder, 'See you at the wedding!' She almost shot back a reply and then remembered that Seph was there, having not yet learnt the words she most wanted to use. She turned back to him, slightly irritated and about to announce that it was time to head for the checkout, but then she saw the look on his face.

'Oh, honey, what's the matter?' She squatted down until she was his height and his big, round eyes were on her.

'Mom, what Uncle James said…does he mean it? Do I have to share you and Dad, when the baby's here?' His gaze was so very sad that her heart broke for him.

'No, of course not!' She felt sick that he would even think that. 'Dad and I would _never_ do that to you, no matter _what _happens.' His gaze fell to his hands, his eyes filling with tears, and she murmured, 'look at me, Seph.' When he did, she told him gently, 'When people have babies, their heart doesn't split up into more pieces. It grows bigger. So when the baby is born my heart's going to grow, and so is your Dad's, and they'll _keep_ growing until they are big enough to love both of you: no less than we do now, and no more because that's not possible. Do you understand me, honey?'

He nodded and she pulled him in for a tender hug, his small arms winding around her neck, hers wrapped around his whole body in a desperate attempt to protect her sweet little boy from the world.

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><p><strong><em>Please<em> review, I know there's been a bit of confusion in previous chapters-I'm working hard to make sure it all becomes clearer, and I need your thoughts for that :D**

**TAJ :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hiyah! This chapter's set another five weeks after the last, and I had some real trouble with the dialogue so I hope it sounds right. Also, I typed it up pretty fast so all mistakes are mine. If there's any questions you have about this chapter, feel free to ask. Also, thank you so much for all the reviews! It's made my week.**

**Bruno still owns it, but at least he's a Jisbon fan too :)**

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><p><strong>April 19th (Five weeks later)<strong>

'Sorry if I woke you.' Lisbon held the door ajar and when Jane dropped his car keys in the bowl beside the door, she added, 'I wouldn't have asked, but you've always been so much better at getting him back to sleep.'

'Nah, it's fine,' he told her, 'it's a nice drive. And besides, I was already awake.' She immediately snapped her gaze to him, concerned-it was nearly one in the morning, why couldn't he..but then he reassured her with a smile. 'Don't worry, it's got nothing to do with Red John. My house is a sauna, it's too hot to sleep, that's all.'

'Oh, okay.' She relaxed and turned to lead him down the hallway, the floorboards cool against her bare feet from the air conditioner, his eyes burning into the back of her. She supposed she hadn't really done anything to prevent the stare, dressed in only a singlet and shorts, but quickened her pace slightly all the same: a moment later, she stopped and met his eyes before gently pushing the door open.

Seph had pulled his knees up under his chin and was staring into the darkness with wide eyes, eyes that shone with relief when he saw who was at the door. Lisbon's first instinct was to go to him, but she knew from past experience that it was better to let Jane go instead-let him sit on the edge of the bed, rest one hand on his son's knee and ask softly, 'Are they the same monsters as last time?'

'No, they're different ones, Daddy'-he only added the 'dy' when fear made him smaller-'they have guns this time. And I couldn't run, my legs wouldn't work…' From where she stood in the doorway, Lisbon's heart nearly broke at the soft shake of his shoulders, the emergence of tears he was too young to be ashamed of. Gently, routinely, Jane climbed onto the bed and took Seph onto his lap, wrapping him in his arms, mumbling words of comfort that Lisbon didn't mind not hearing. She knew it was helping, not from the way Seph's breathing was slowly evening out but because she had experienced first-hand how warm his voice was in the darkness, how strong and safe his arms when it was needed. And even though his mumblings were only a low buzz, the sound floated over and through her until she too was serene.

After a few minutes, Jane slowly unwrapped his arms and lay Seph on top of the bed, pulling the thinnest sheet up to his stomach and then wandering back to stand slightly behind her.

'Thank you,' she whispered.

'Anytime.' For a moment they were still, and then suddenly he was right against her back and tenderly folding his arms around her, mindful of her now definite bump. His head came to rest lightly against her shoulder and she let him, partly because she knew how much he thrived on human contact but also partly because her skin had begun to tingle from his touch. She threaded her fingers through his and they stayed like that for a long time, watching the slow rise and fall of Seph's stomach in the dim light from the hallway, and for a moment Lisbon forgot that they weren't a perfect family. Because right now, it seemed impossible that they didn't have the picket fence and the happiness that came along with it.

Slowly, she grew curious: even on uneventful nights, Seph tossed and turned in his sleep, but tonight he was perfectly still.

'What did you say to him?' she murmured.

'Hmm?' Her words had evidently broken his train of thought.

'Seph,' she repeated quietly. 'He's so…calm. What did you tell him?'

'What I always tell him.'

'Which is?'

'What I used to always tell myself.' At his words, she squeezed his hand. 'That nightmares are just dreams covered in fear, so things are only scary if you choose to be afraid.'

'That's actually kind of beautiful.'

'And, also, I said that if he believed in it strongly enough, you would show up in his dream and rescue him.'

'I bet you didn't tell _yourself_ that, though.'

He didn't answer.

Lisbon almost lingered over what his silence meant, but then decided that it would lead her mind to awkward places so let it drop. In the near distance, the metallic ticking of a clock filtered through to her and she suddenly remembered how late it was, how they had work in the morning and a double homicide to continue working on. And so it was that she was about to untangle herself from him, wondering if she should pull out the spare bed (it was over half an hour back to the city, after all) when suddenly, ever-so-slowly, ever-so-tenderly, he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck.

She stiffened immediately, all too aware that they were entering dangerous territory. But the knowledge was only vague, as if someone else had thought it, and quickly overtaken by a heat that began where his lips touched her skin and spread throughout her body, sinking sheer blind longing into her heart, breaking down her walls like paper. Her last ounce of conscience, as she turned around and he cupped her face in his hands, was to mutter, 'I'm only going to hurt you, you know.'

'No, you're not,' he replied simply.

And then, as the heat finally reached her mind, he crashed his lips down upon hers and she forgot everything else, forgot why she would ever not want to be surrounded by him, why she could ever think it wrong. All she felt was a raging need to be lost, to feel nothing but his touch; pulling him impossibly closer, as close as her stomach would allow, and whereas that one night three and a half months ago was lit with soft, caressing kisses, his mouth was now hard, insistent, needing, and she was only too happy to comply.

She vaguely registered the floor shifting under her but didn't fully acknowledge that they were moving until suddenly she was horizontal and her back was sinking down into the mattress of her bed. And he was on top of her, though still careful around her stomach, and she vaguely wondered how the hell he even remembered that she was pregnant, because she'd certainly forgotten…his mouth left hers abruptly and she panicked, then calmed again when he began to kiss her neck, working his way down, sending more and more heat coursing through her with every touch. Quivering, she sighed and turned her head to give him better access and her eyes fell on the framed photo she kept on her bedside table, lit up by the dim overhead light she didn't remember either of them turning on.

For reasons she didn't know, Lisbon couldn't draw her gaze away from the photo, even as Jane worked his way steadily lower. It had been taken almost a year ago by Rigsby-Seph's birthday, to be exact-and showed Jane sitting on his couch at the CBI, Seph huddled beside him holding a then infant Connie the puppy. Lisbon herself was on the floor beween them, her back against the front of the couch and her left shoulder against Jane's leg. It was a natural photo, no masks or fake smiles or forced happiness. It was just them, her tiny family, not perfect but a family nonetheless.

And with this thought came the realisation, heavy and sudden, that she was about to destroy everything.

It was an inevitable cycle. She might be open and wanting now, but during the night her walls would steadily build themselves back up and in the morning she would push him away, because she was too frightened of what would happen if she didn't. She would hurt him. And then, when Seph saw his Dad broken, she would hurt her little boy as well.

Just like that, the heat evaporated and panic set in, Jane's touch no longer warm but cold, so very cold.

Slowly, horribly, she closed her eyes and opened her mouth.

'Jane, stop.' At first he didn't seem to hear her, focused on the skin in between her singlet and her shorts, but then she rested her hand on his head and said, 'Patrick.' His lips hesitated on her skin, and the following moments of silence were some of the worst she'd ever endured. She could feel his breath against her stomach, and she closed her eyes tighter in a desperate attempt to disconnect herself, numb all her senses until she was strong enough to do what she was about to do.

'Please, Reese,' he murmured eventually. 'Don't.'

'I'm so sorry, I just…' she heard movement and when she opened her eyes he had suspended himself above her, desperate longing still ablaze in his eyes. 'I just don't want it to be like last time,' she admitted, one hand on the bulge of her stomach.

'Maybe it'll be different this time, in the morning,' he offered. 'Maybe you'll want me to stay. But neither of us will ever know if you keep pushing me away.' The longing in his eyes was now overshadowed by an intense pleading, searching her for regret, for indecision, things he could use to change her mind and things she refused to let him see. When she didn't answer, his face began to fall and with it went all of her strength. 'What did I do wrong?' he asked, frustration and pain pouring from him.

Nothing. He'd done nothing wrong, and it only increased her self-loathing. Bitter tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, and as he rolled onto his back beside her she prayed for the ability to storm inside her to her heart and break down all of her goddamn walls, smash down the bricks until nothing could ever build them back up, and she could never hurt him again. But there was no choice. He would be hurt no matter what she did-the only difference was whether she hurt Seph too, and nothing terrified her more than the thought of that.

'I love you,' he breathed tiredly into the silence, as if the truth of it drained him.

'I know,' she replied softly, and glanced over to see that he was crying as well. Suddenly desperate to comfort him, she reached out her arm but he flinched at her touch, as if she was poison.

She supposed that she was.

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><p><strong>Review if you're frustrated with Lisbon (I know I am)! Thanks for reading.<strong>

**TAJ :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Firstly, can I say how sorry I am for the delay; I sat down to write this four days ago but I got a nasty case of writer's block and just couldn't. Anyway, thank you all so much for all the reviews, story alerts and favourites! To know that people are actually reading what I write is amazing. This chapter's set five weeks after the last one, please enjoy it. **

**Bruno, let's do swapsies. All my money for your show. Granted, I don't really have that much but you could probably buy a kick-ass trampoline...**

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><p><strong>May 26th (Five Weeks Later)<strong>

'Jane, can I talk to you for a second?'

She didn't blame him for being surprised; after all, they'd barely had a conversation in weeks. Five weeks ago, Lisbon had hoped that maybe they could act as if _that_ night had never happened, as if she hadn't rejected him on the basis of her own fear, but hope had quickly dwindled when she saw how badly he'd pieced himself back together. When he looked at her now, it wasn't in desire but in a sort of sad acceptance, a confirmation of a heart broken not for the first time, and it only made her feel more guilty. And so even Seph was taken aback by her question, bringing his card shuffling to an abrupt halt and looking at her in wonder.

'Uh…' It took a moment for the words to filter through his disconcertment. 'Yeah, sure,' he eventually said and turned back around. 'Keep practising, Seph, I'll be back in a bit.'

'Kay,' was the reply, but Seph didn't move and Lisbon felt his wide green eyes on both of them as she led Jane into the hallway outside the kitchen. As she stopped and saw his expectation, the words lodged themselves in her throat and he tilted his head, intrigued by her silence. She took a breath, and all the syllables leapt out suddenly in a mad rush.

'Do you want to come to the ultrasound?' It came out _dywancometothultrsound?_ but somehow Jane deciphered it. When he looked down, she'd almost fully convinced herself that he was going to say no and had her reaction on stand-by-'Oh, no, that's okay, I didn't think you'd want to anyway'-but then there was a small smile at the edge of his mouth, and when he looked up there was a naked affection in his eyes where the sadness had once been.

'Yeah…yeah, I do,' he answered. 'Thanks, Lisbon.' Jane hadn't called her Reese since _that_ night so it wasn't the 'Lisbon' that she lingered on, but the gratitude; he saw her confusion before she felt it, and took a slightly shaky breath before explaining-'I thought you wouldn't ask.'

'I nearly didn't,' she admitted, but felt the regret rise up almost immediately so added seriously, 'It's your baby too. You should be there.' He looked so touched by her words that she inwardly chided herself for spending so long in her office, debating whether she really wanted him there.

'When is it?' he asked.

'In twenty minutes.'

'_Oh._' He hadn't expected that. 'Well, it's a good thing there's nothing to do here.' They'd solved their most recent case, the Linda Richards homicide, last night. Jane glanced in the direction of the kitchen and said, 'Cho and Rigsby can babysit, then. I'll go tell Seph…meet you at the elevator in a couple of minutes?'

'Okay.' His gaze found Lisbon's again for a little longer, and then he turned and made his way back into the kitchen. She smiled softly after him, glad she'd made him feel at least a little lighter, and then felt the sudden but powerful need for sugar, flavour, calories, and headed for her office. Hoping against hope that the bag of lollipops in her desk wasn't as empty as she remembered, all too aware that if she didn't find something with sugar in it soon then she was apt to shout at the next person she saw. And she really didn't want to be in a bad mood when she met her baby.

Thankfully, she managed to dig one last lollipop out of the bottom of the drawer: and so half an hour she wasn't grumpy, as the nurse ran the cold nozzle over her growing stomach, but nervous. The memory of her ultrasound nearly six years ago was all too clear-the nurse had taken a few seconds to find the red of Seph's heart, and she'd been nearly paralysed with fear. This time, however, the flickering heartbeat was immediate and the red vivid. Beside her on an uncomfortable plastic chair, Jane glanced at her in relief. He remembered too.

'Everything seems to be moving along nicely,' the nurse informed them. She could have been one of the nurses in the delivery room when Seph was born, but Lisbon couldn't be sure. 'Fingers and toes almost fully developed, steady heartbeat. See this big round shape here?' She pointed to a section of the screen. 'That's the baby's head. And what looks like a string of bubbles is the umbilical cord.' From the head, Lisbon visually worked her way down to what she bleakly guessed was the shoulder, then made out an arm and followed it to a tiny hand with perfect, delicate fingers curled up like flower petals. The sight made her gasp, and she was about to point it out to Jane but forgot her words when she saw his face. His eyes were glued to the screen, and shining so brightly with wonder that she would never have even guessed at the sadness under his skin; what wouldn't let her go, though, wasn't the awe but the realisation that he'd experienced this three times in his life, and it never seemed to get any less beautiful. Lisbon could feel her eyes misting over and let the tears come, unable to fight the hormones.

'Do you want to know the sex of the baby?' She shared a unanimous glance with Jane, and then nodded. They'd learnt their lesson last time, opting to keep it a surprise but then faced with the daunting task of somehow finding two first names that they both agreed on. The nurse smiled. 'Congratulation,' she said, 'it's a little girl.'

Instantly, Lisbon felt an elated grin spread across her face, felt her heart quicken in excitement. It wasn't that she liked the idea of a daughter more than a son-God knew she wouldn't give up Seph for anything-but with a childhood full of raising boys, the thought of watching a little _girl_ was just so…different, so beautiful and new. Eager to see Jane's mirrored happiness, she looked over and got the smile she wanted but it sent all of her senses rushing to attention.

The happiness didn't reach his eyes.

If he'd put on this mask twelve years ago he might have been able to deceive her. But now, with their lives as intertwined as they were, she highly doubted he was stupid enough to assume that nothing had changed. And yet he just kept on smiling, smiling, smiling at the screen, as if he didn't want to look at her, as if he thought she wouldn't ask.

But ten minutes later, she _did_ ask, as the hospital front doors slid open for them and they started for her car.

'What's the matter?'

'What?' Jane's voice pitched a little higher. 'Nothing. Nothing's the matter, everything's great.'

'Don't pull that crap, you know I can see through it.' He stopped walking to look at her, and she stared back defiantly; usually, this stubbornness would be enough to pull the truth from him, but this time he only cocked his head.

'I'm not pulling anything,' he claimed bravely. 'Why would I do that?'

Why, indeed. She broke his gaze to think, her mind trailing back over the last twenty minutes, over his forced smile and his refusing to look at her…and suddenly a horrible, horrible thought struck her, and it shoved itself into the open before she could do anything else. 'Do you…do you not want to have this baby anymore?'

'_What_?'

'You heard me.' Lisbon didn't know if it was the hormones turning her guess into a certainty, but her accusation was dealt in a snarl and she just couldn't seem to stop it. All she could feel was the sudden rage, burning in her stomach: how the _hell_ could he not want those beautiful shapes on the screen, those perfectly curled fingers? 'If you didn't want another baby,' she yelled, 'you should have just _told_ me before I asked you to come see her on a bloody _screen_…'

'Lisbon, stop.' She was about to launch herself into more accusations, but then she realised that he was holding her by the shoulders-the first time they'd touched in over a month-and she fell silent, suddenly aware that a few people on the footpath were staring at her. 'Listen,' Jane told her calmly, 'you're five months pregnant, the hormones are taking over your mind. Of _course_ I want you to have the baby. I _want_ Seph to have a sister, and whoever told you that I didn't was _lying_. Okay?'

'Okay,' she muttered, but as he let her go she glanced up into his eyes and the doubt stared down at her, plain and clear.

She'd forgotten how inferior she felt when he lied to her.

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><p><strong>Please review! It means a lot. The next chapter's a little longer so it'll probably take a good three days, I really want to get this one right.<strong>

**TAJ :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay, I have officially decided that I'm terrible at keeping promises. So sorry for the (very) late update; life got a bit busy and writer's block only fully went away yesterday. Anyway, thanks for the amazing reviews, and this chapter's a little longer than the others...so I hope you enjoy it! **

**Bruno's.**

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><p><strong>June 3rd (One Week Later)<strong>

It was like deja vu, as if Jane had been pitched backward five years in time and was holding a Seph whose age was measured in months. The same dimples, the same inability to keep still, the same tufts of hair which would grow into a messy brown: but then Ben Rigsby gazed up at him with brown eyes, not green, and he blinked back to the present. To the fact that he was seated on his couch in the bullpen, one twin on his lap and present-day Seph beside him, fidgeting impatiently.

'Be careful with her, Junior,' he was warned lightly, 'she's breakable.'

'I won't break her, Aunt Grace, you can trust me.' Grace carefully lowered Lucy down onto the couch and Seph was true to his word, holding her as gently as if she were a candle-flame in the wind about to blow away. The little girl lifted a clumsy hand to fondle his face; the boy froze, an awe creeping out into his eyes, and for a moment Jane pictured him holding his baby sister with the same tenderness in a few months time. But then 'sister' translated to 'daughter', the panic came and he closed his eyes, fighting the urge to clench his fists because Ben was playing with his fingers.

'It's kind of ironic, actually,' Rigsby announced to all of them. 'Lucy's the one who can't sleep, but Ben's the one who can't sit still. It's like they had it all figured out beforehand.'

'Well, you can't blame them for being organised,' commented Cho.

'I guess it's just…oh, God,' he groaned quietly as Lucy's eyes closed, 'you've _got_ to be kidding me.' Grace slapped him playfully on the shoulder, informed, 'I'll take her now, Seph,' and gently took her from him; noiselessly, she walked the four or so steps back to her desk, which seemed strange with her at it again, and sat down. 'Sweet dreams, Lucky,' she murmured, kissing the top of her baby's auburn head, and both Jane and Rigsby smirked at the nickname. It came from the day after the twins were born, when Seph saw Lucy's name on paper and pronounced it wrong; he usually flushed in embarrassment when he heard it, but now the boy looked past Jane to where he knew Lisbon was, his mind elsewhere.

'Mom, so do you have a girl baby like Lucy in your tummy?'

'I sure do, honey. She's just not quite as big yet.' Jane could hear her smile but didn't look over, not because he didn't want to but because he knew his eyes would inevitably drag down to her stomach, and then she would know what he was thinking.

'Wow.' Seph glanced at him as if wanting him to share in the wonder, but he was perceptive for his age and noticed the glaze over Jane's eyes, his absolute refusal to be a part of the conversation. He looked disappointed, but only momentarily, because then it was as if something had occurred to him and he pushed himself to the edge of the couch, his shoes finding the floor. Jane watched him wander over to Cho, but for the life of him could not decipher the secret conversation the two then shared; he'd never been able to read Cho's face, and Seph had his back turned. He gave up after a moment, glanced down and almost completely forgot about what his son was doing, thrown back into his own plight by the finger where his wedding ring used to be. Ben's wide eyes again met his, as if asking him the very question he was asking himself. The question he didn't know how to answer.

_Why are you so afraid?_

'Hey, that reminds me,' Grace spoke up suddenly, 'have you picked a name for her yet? Because you had this beautiful girl's name picked out for Seph…what was it…'

'Emma,' Rigsby offered.

'Yeah, that was it,' she confirmed, and looked past Jane expectantly as Seph had before.

'Well, I haven't stopped loving it,' Lisbon replied, 'but it's not just me who has to approve.' And even though his eyes were trained on Ben, Jane felt almost instantly the heat of Grace's gaze, first expectant but then confused-it was her first visit to the CBI since the ultrasound and she was new to this. To Lisbon's attempts, many times over the past week, to make him talk to her, and to his inability to do so properly, because anything even slightly connected to her linked immediately to…

'I still like it,' he forced out, and inwardly winced at the confusion that poured from Lisbon each time they did this. Jane had assumed that she would have it figured out by now, but somehow the truth had escaped her and it seemed to leave her lost. He'd tried to tell her, many times over the past few days, but as if on cue he would seize up, adamant that he was about to destroy whatever it was they had so precariously built. He was trapped.

Thankfully, before the silence could grow to horrible lengths Seph ended his discreet conversation with Cho and returned to the couch. And it was as if Rigsby had suddenly sprung upon an idea to ease the tension, and practically threw his words into the air.

'So, Seph,' he said, 'I hear someone's turning six tomorrow.' Seph beamed in return, as if his secrets with Cho had been forgotten.

'Me! It's me, Uncle Wayne!' Beside a grinning Rigsby Jane could still feel Grace's burning stare, now one of concern, and he pretended not to notice.

'Aunt Grace and I had better get you a present then, hey. Any ideas?'

'I dunno,' Seph admitted. 'I mean, 'cause I got Connie last year and I don't want anything else that's a big present, and Mom says that on your birthday you get big presents.'

'But if you could ask for anything in the world,' Rigsby leant forward, 'anything at all. It doesn't matter how much it costs or how big it is. What would it be?' Seph took the question seriously, his eyebrows knotted in concentration, and Jane could almost see the gears of his mind ticking over.

'I want…' he said eventually but then faltered, suddenly nervous.

'We won't laugh, honey,' encouraged Lisbon. But Seph didn't look over at her, comforted, like Jane thought he would. He just kept staring at his hands like they were the most interesting thing in the world, looking much like his Dad must have only moments before: and suddenly, Jane had an idea of what his wish might be, and the dread washed over him in abundance.

'I want Mom and Dad to be talking properly again.'

The words slammed into Jane with enough force almost to knock the breath out of him. His heart plummeted and he swallowed hard, suddenly no longer aware of just his own demons but of those of other people, those of his son. Seph, who barely understood the boundaries that kept his parents apart but suffered from its consequences regardless, and the bare truth of it all made him feel so terribly guilty, an emotion so immense that it almost reminded him of his Red John years.

When the phone rang, it broke the silence like glass shattering on concrete. Cho was the first to recover, and while he answered it Jane steeled himself, then forced his gaze fully onto Lisbon for the first time in days: she, however, wasn't looking at him or Seph, just down at her hands like she wished she could disappear. And it dawned on him, heavily but clearly, that he couldn't do it anymore; this stagnancy was hurting them all, even more than the panic of a daughter. Even more than the pain of sleeping in a half-empty bed with the knowledge that Lisbon slept in one too.

'We're up,' Cho proclaimed as he set the phone back down on the receiver. 'Triple homicide a few blocks away.'

Whether Lisbon agreed to it or not, she and Seph were his family. And he couldn't let them live like this. Not for him, not for anyone.

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><p>That night, Jane parked his car in Lisbon's driveway. As quietly as possible, he fished the spare key she'd given him out of his pocket and let himself into the house, shrugging off his shoes and jacket (it was becoming quite the hot Californian summer) and then padding softly down the hallway. He'd half expected her to be strewn across the couch, watching late-night television and sucking a lollipop, but they finished work only an hour ago and Jane knew from the silence, even before he'd reached the living room, that she was asleep.<p>

On the way to her room, his paternal instincts stopped him at Seph's door and he peered into the room to see Connie lying on the mattress beside him. It was an unfamiliar sight, because the puppy was rarely allowed inside; Jane guessed that he'd been having nightmares again, despite being worn out from his afternoon with his Aunt Grace and the twins (Grace often babysat when there was a case, claimed it was 'good practise'), and Lisbon hadn't wanted to call him so she'd bent her own rules. One of Seph's arms was loosely thrown over Connie's black outline, and Jane sighed sadly when he saw that the boy had one thumb in his mouth. The nightmare must have been a bad one; he hadn't sucked his thumb for years, and it only made Jane feel like a worse parent than he already did, only moved him faster along the hallway to Lisbon's room.

He raised one hand to the doorknob and hesitated there, resting his forehead gently against the wooden surface. He really didn't want to wake her. She was a six-months-pregnant cop, she needed her sleep. But if he went home now, then he doubted he would have the courage to prepare himself again for the conversation at his fingertips.

She'd been asleep, he could tell, lying on her side with her back to him, but as the stripe of hallway light rushed into the room she rolled over so that she was facing him.

'Hi, honey,' she murmured without opening her eyes, 'is it the monsters again?' Jane understood her assumption that it was Seph at the door, but still felt like he was intruding somewhat so did the appropriate thing, and knocked. Her eyes flickered open, it took her a moment to register that he was there and then she said, 'Oh.'

'Can I come in?' he asked, and she nodded after a seconds consideration or a seconds preparation, he couldn't be sure. Slowly, he approached the bed and sat on the floor, his right shoulder almost touching the bed, his back against her bedside table, his head close to the photograph of them with Seph and Connie. Her somnolent eyes followed him there like a shadow.

'You do realise it's nearly eleven.'

'Yeah, sorry. I would have come straight after work, but I had…' He glanced down, wishing he'd stopped at the apology. 'I had to do some things first.'

'You went to the cemetery.' It wasn't a question, but a statement, a true one, and Jane took silent comfort in the fact that she knew him this well. And yet it wasn't what she thought. He hadn't gone because he couldn't let go of his past life; he went to clarify what he needed to do in his present one. To remind himself of what he had already been through, and that all those years of chasing a serial killer took a courage far greater than the amount he needed here, to be able to look her in the eye now and tell her the truth.

'I'm scared,' he breathed slowly, 'that if we have a daughter she's going to remind me of Charlie.' When he saw no dawning understanding in her eyes, as if she'd been expecting worse, he added, 'That's all.'

'That's why you've barely looked at me all week?'

'I didn't think you'd be so…understanding.'

'You give me no credit.' The words confused him, and she explained. 'Jane, I'd never ask you to forget about your family. I just wouldn't. I know you need those memories.' She thought a little more, and then said, 'Let me put it this way. You…you love me, right?'

'Yes,' he answered unashamedly, not missing her pause, her nervousness at the word.

'But you still love Angela.' Jane nodded, and as she fell silent he realised what she was saying. He had managed to hold onto Angela, store the memories in a room in his mind, and yet keep her and Lisbon apart. Ange's door was closed and she was gone, but he was not replacing her, not cheating, not guilty. He was only filling the hole she'd left behind, with a woman that was no more and no less special, and there was no reason why he couldn't learn to do the same for his daughters.

'I never thought of it like that,' he admitted. She smiled, and for the first time since the ultrasound his eyes left her face, traveled to her stomach and he tentatively imagined the little girl inside. Would she learn piano, as Charlie had wanted to? Or would she express herself in other ways, painting or sports or teenage rebellion, moral statements and protests against humanity? Raven curls, naturally, falling in loose ringlets down to her waist, spinning with the wind, framing delicate porcelain skin and striking emerald eyes that, with time, would captivate any stranger, hold them and never let them go. They were the eyes of her brother. The eyes of her Mom. Jane returned his gaze lazily back to Lisbon's face and was caught out by how beautiful she looked then, with the dim light shimmering on her cheekbones and the tenderness shining in her eyes. He could sit here and look at her for the rest of his life, and never get his breath back.

'You have no idea how much I want to kiss you right now.'

She smiled wistfully. 'I wish I could let you.' Her sentence hung over him for a short while, before her right arm reached around him to pull him slightly closer and she pressed a long, lingering kiss to the side of his head. Jane knew it was an apology, but strangely enough he felt lighter after she'd done it, and supposed it was the simple fact that they were finally on the slow path back to what they'd been a few months ago.

'Stay tonight,' she said. 'You shouldn't have to drive back home this late.'

'Okay,' he replied. 'The couch in the living room pulls out, yeah?' But as he asked the question she patted the empty half of the bed behind her in beckoning, and in compliance he stood to fully close the door: a moment later, he was around the other side of the bed and slipping in between the covers. She rolled carefully back over toward him and rested her head on his pillow, her breaths calm and light against his neck, her stomach gently pressing against his. It felt extraordinary.

In the few seconds of semi-consciousness before sleep took him, Jane suddenly realised why he felt lighter. It wasn't because they were talking again-even though that in itself was a wonderful thing-but because of the hope he got from her words. _I wish I could let you_. Simple syllables, but their meaning was precious; she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to love him. Which suggested that what was needed to break down her walls was not change, but time: after all, fear dissolved by itself if one stood in front of the frightening thing and waited long enough.

And he would wait forever, if forever was what it took.

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><p>It was the door that slammed first, jolting Jane into consciousness, then the heavy thumping of the floorboards which steadily grew louder as they neared. The doorknob turned, with little to none of the care that he had taken the night before, and then:<p>

'_MOM!_ _Mom_, wake up, it's today, today is my…' Jane chose that moment to open his eyes and eventually managed to focus on Seph in the doorway, becoming steadily more awake when he registered that his son was staring at him. At his arm, draped gently over Lisbon and at her forehead, still startling close to his own; as she woke up too, her eyes clasped naturally onto his, then to the doorway in curiosity, then back to him in alarm. Rapidly, he drew his arm back and sat up, but the damage had already been done.

'Oh my God…you're boyfriend and girlfriend!' Seph beamed, somehow clinging onto a new level of excitement. 'Uncle Cho was right! It _did_ work!'

'What worked, honey?' Lisbon cautiously asked.

'_Simm_-pafee!' Sympathy. Jane thought back to the day before, to Seph's secret conversation with Cho, only moments before Rigsby had asked him what he'd wanted for his birthday. Before he'd made his haunting, confronting wish…but before either of them could so much as speak, Seph had disappeared from the doorway and ran through the house, shouting. 'CONNIE! Con, guess what, _Dad _is here, he's in Mom's _bed_!' From down the hallway, the puppy barked.

Inwardly, Jane cursed the way children leapt to such bold conclusions, then discarded most of the irritation when he realised that he did almost exactly that for a living. Lisbon sat up beside him and he panicked slightly, knowing her walls were back up, anticipating the averted eyes and the blunt conversation. But then she looked over at him, and it wasn't in fear but annoyance.

'Damn Cho,' she muttered, and he smiled. When she turned back toward the door, though, her expression became uncertain and she said, 'it'd ruin his birthday if we told him he was wrong.'

'It would,' he agreed, and an idea seemed to occur to her then because suddenly her eyes were on him and her words were timid. 'Do you think we could maybe…keep up the charade, just for today? Just enough to keep him happy, and then we'll break the news tomorrow.'

It was a dangerous idea, given all their complications, but oddly enough it wasn't too hard a thing to agree to.

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading; please review!<strong>

**I'm making no promises with updates this time, but I _can_ say that I'll try and get it done and up as soon as I can.**

**TAJ :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hello everyone...I think it's been a week since the last update, so that's not too bad, is it? Thank you all again for the wonderful reviews; this chapter's set six weeks after Jane and Lisbon spend the night in her bed and Seph finds them. I really hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: Bruno's.**

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><p><strong>July 15th (Six Weeks Later)<strong>

It had definitely been the big box he was carrying, the one with his precious blue teacup inside, and Lisbon knew he'd stop by the kitchen to take out the china and find it a place amongst her mugs. He'd take his time, and thus she had some. Throwing her lollipop stick aside, she leant forward slowly-mindful of her now irritatingly large stomach-and snatched her phone from the coffee table, scrolling quickly through her Contacts to Cho, her fingers a blur as she typed the message.

_What did Darwin's girlfriend have to say about his drug oper..._

'Don't you dare.' The voice was warm and rough in her ear, startling her, and then suddenly he was reaching around her to prise her phone from her fingers. She pouted up at him, feeling like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

'It's just a text, Jane,' she whined in protest. 'I'm not going to sneak out.'

'Well, you say that now,' he reasoned while deleting the message, 'but who's to say _what _you'll do when you find out the girlfriend was trafficking the drugs first?'

'_What_?'

'I'm joking.' He smiled, amused, and then it disappeared. 'But seriously, Reese. I just don't want you to get hurt again. I don't want Seph's world falling apart like mine did last time.'

Lisbon remembered all too easily, and far too vividly. It was the case she'd refused to back out of, despite that it had been one of the most dangerous she'd ever worked, despite that she'd been five months pregnant with Seph; three SAC PD cops killed in cold blood, the world full of animosity and the murderer full of more drugs than any one person had the right to survive. Although, if he hadn't been so delirious then he might have shot her in the chest, not the top of the leg, and her tiny baby boy might not have lived.

So she understood the emotion swimming in Jane's eyes, shoved the memory back behind its locked door and was about to sigh an 'okay' but then realised how close he was, looming above her but not in a threatening way, not in a way she entirely hated. For a reason she didn't know, this charade of a relationship they'd been performing for Seph's sake (one day of pretending had somehow stretched out to six weeks) rendered her fearless when it came to him, able to have him close without her walls springing up to protect her. She'd wondered why quite a few times and supposed that because it wasn't a real relationship, there was no hurt involved, none for her to inflict and none for Jane to suffer, and she could handle that. It probably helped that his stares weren't lustful anymore, or even sad, but full of something lighter and which she couldn't quite categorise; something she let him wear because it meant he wasn't broken anymore, and that was definitely a good thing.

'Take it,' she conceded, letting go of her phone, 'before I forget this whole conversation.'

'Yes, Ma'am,' he replied, and may have kept talking but Lisbon didn't hear it, suddenly captivated by the soft jolt against her womb. Without a word, she reached for his hand and pulled it over to rest against her stomach, and they waited; when the feeling came again, she watched his face dissolve into a wonder that she remembered from the ultrasound, nearly two months ago now.

'She's a real live wire, huh,' he murmured, his breath warming her cheek.

'Two more months, Em,' she smiled. 'You've inherited your Dad's impatience, but I won't hold that against you.'

'Ouch!' he exclaimed, and she glanced across, but her response died on her lips when it occurred to her just how close they actually were: with the turn of her head alone, she'd brought their mouths within an inch. Confusion filtered through when he didn't pull back, but then she glimpsed Seph standing in the doorway and understood; briefly, gently, warmly, Jane leant forward and kissed her.

'_Eeewwww_,' she heard and broke the kiss, smiling as Jane leant back again. Seph was expressing the usual childish disgust at romance, Connie at his heels (Lisbon had let her inside today, being in a refreshingly good mood), but he could barely suppress his smugness. She had never seen her son quite so genuinely happy as he had been these past few weeks, and it filled her with equal measures of peace and guilt.

'Hey,' Jane told him jovially, 'aren't you supposed to be getting boxes from the car?'

'But _Daaddd_,' he groaned, 'there's so much stuff and you're the one who's moving in and you're not even _helping _anymore…

'Course I'm helping, I just need to tell your Mom something first.' And when Seph looked uncertain, 'I'll be there in a minute, I promise.'

'Pinkie swear?' Seph approached the couch with his little finger extended; Jane obediently pinkie swore him and he trudged back out of the room, Connie loping after him as always. The moment he was gone, Jane circled the couch to sit down beside Lisbon and waited a while before turning to her. She'd been vaguely wondering what it was he had to tell her-probably some absurd fact about her coffee mugs-but her lighthearted mindset faded when she saw the gravity in his eyes.

'You know, Reese,' he exhaled, 'as much as I love…this'-he indicated the both of them together-'we can't go on deceiving him forever. It's not right.' He looked at her with regret and her mind reversed back over the past month and a half, to the times Seph was in the room and he'd kiss her, or take her hand, or hug her from behind like he so loved to do. She hadn't been entirely opposed to it, either, secretly cherishing the easiness with which they'd done these things, but what saddened her was that it had only been so easy because she'd known it would eventually end. No commitment, no fear, and she sighed in acknowledgement.

'Yeah,' she admitted, 'but it's just…he's so _happy_. He said it was the best birthday present he'd ever had.'

'He's told me that as well. But the way I see it,' he informed her, 'there's two ways out of this. We can tell him the truth, or we can turn the facade _into _the truth. And since the latter's not possible, then-'

'Not yet,' she cut him off.

'What?'

'It's not possible _yet_.' She met and held his gaze fiercely, needing him to know, and watched the night they starting talking again float through his mind. Watched the timid hope seep into his eyes and his mouth creak upwards in a warm half-smile. And they were both so encased in each other's gazes that neither heard movement at the door, until there was an annoyed voice.

'It's been a minute, Dad, you _pinkie swore_…'

Jane glanced at her, and she cleared her throat nervously. 'Come sit down, honey,' she beckoned, 'we've got to tell you something.' _Here we go_. Seph hesitated slightly, then meandered over to the armchair beside the couch and fixed them with an expectant gaze. Lisbon took a deep breath, gave him one more moment of bliss, and then opened her mouth.

'I'm so sorry, Seph,' she told him, 'but your Dad and I, we're not…we're not boyfriend and girlfriend.' She braced herself as he processed the information, but couldn't stop herself from wincing as his face fell into disappointment and sadness, then confusion.

'But you kissed!' he protested. 'And you cuddled and…and _Dad_, you were in Mom's _bed_!'

'We were acting, Seph,' Jane explained, and Lisbon could hear the reluctance in his voice. 'It was a present, for your birthday…and it was the best present ever, don't you remember saying that?'

'But it's not _real_!' he yelled suddenly, making Lisbon jump. At the sound of his distress, Connie ambled over and nosed his knee questioningly but he barely noticed, his fists clenched, and she suddenly loathed herself for letting this whole thing go on for so long. They shouldn't have let him be deceived in the first place; they should have just been straight with him on the morning of his birthday. Looking down, she waited for the tantrum to start, but something must have suddenly occurred to Seph because his next words were carefully measured.

'But if you aren't boyfriend and girlfriend,' he said, 'then…Dad…why are you moving in?'

'Because, Seph,' Jane answered slowly, an obvious attempt to calm him down, 'in two months you're going to have a little sister, and Mom can't take care of you both by herself. She needs me around to help.' It was a very good answer, mainly because it was the truth; no matter what state their relationship was in, Lisbon would always put her children first and she regretted not having someone around at night when Seph was a baby. And Jane might have actually succeeded in convincing Seph of it, if he hadn't added, 'I'm just trying to be a good Dad.' The boy looked at him then, his eyes wide and startlingly cold.

'You're moving in,' he stated, 'so you can be a good Dad to Emma.'

'That's right.'

'So why didn't you move in for me?'

Jane opened his mouth, thought better, closed it, and then opened it again; Lisbon's stomach dropped to the floor, her mind desperately searching for some miracle sentence that would answer Seph's question, make it all better, but she highly doubted that there was one. It was certainly not the moment for the truth. She closed her eyes to wonder when she'd become such a bad parent, and the frozen silence stretched on and on, rendering them utterly useless, broken when Seph jumped to his feet with fire in his eyes.

'You lied to me, Mom! You said that I wouldn't have to share you and Dad with Emma, but I do!'

'Of _course _you don't…'

'I _do_! You love her more than me already, and she's not even _born_ yet!' Lisbon could do nothing but sit dumbly and watch him storm from the room, Connie pausing to look at them in a sort of final accusation before following him. For a long time, they sat there wordlessly in the aftermath, a cold silence that sunk through her bitterly; at one point, she glanced dazedly across to see the same shock holding him captive too, an expression so bare that she had to look away. And so she must have only just missed the realisation that certainly would have been on his face, the harsh bottom line that put itself into words and forced its way out his mouth.

'We have to tell him the truth,' he mumbled.

'Isn't that what we just did?'

'No,' he said, 'I mean the _real_ truth.' And the dumbness returned in one sickening motion, to the point where it took all of her strength merely to make herself turn to look at him, adamant that he must be joking. But his expression was deadly serious, and with the heavy acceptance of this came the burning need to argue, make him see how horribly wrong he was.

'But we _can't_,' she whispered as if Seph was going to hear her. 'We…we just can't. How could you even _suggest_…no.' She could barely form a single coherent thought, let alone a sentence, and when she found a string of syllables that could pass for one she leapt upon it. 'He isn't supposed to know. Not ever. We agreed on that.'

'But Reese…'

'He _idolises_ you, Jane. He named the dog Consultant, for God's sake, it'll _break_ him…'

'Reese.' She stopped and looked over, the emotions of pregnancy in her eyes and her voice. Jane met and held her gaze calmly, carefully, but she could glimpse the nervousness behind it. 'Look, I don't want to fight with you, okay?' He hesitated. 'I just don't want to lie to him anymore. He has the right to know the truth, whatever…whatever happens afterwards.'

And though Lisbon was stubborn and fought so very hard to keep it from dawning on her, the reasoning in his words sunk through her skin a little. But flowing deep, deep down in her stomach and her heart was the raging doubt, and the disbelief, and the frightening knowledge that if Seph was hurt by their admission today then the secret they'd kept from him for six years was going to destroy him.

Destroy everything.

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><p><strong>Review if you're curious :) and thank you for reading!<strong>

**TAJ.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Okay, I'm in a little bit of a rush but here's Chapter Eight! Thank you to all the reviews from last chapter, all I can say is W O W. I feel so loved! This one's set six weeks after they told Seph that they were just pretending, but then there are some flashbacks which I hope will be clear. **

**Disclaimer: Bruno's.**

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><p><strong>August 30th (Six Weeks Later)<strong>

There had always been two people Jane never wanted to lie to. One of them was pregnant, and the other was six years old.

He'd always somehow known the day would come; the point in time where he looked backwards to all the lies he'd told, all the people he'd manipulated for the sake of justice or amusement, and saw Seph standing there beside them. Another victim, no less or more than the rest, and it made him sick with guilt at the fact that his own desire for pretence had faded away the distinction. Day by day, Jane trapped himself more and more in a web of his own making, and there was no escape: it seemed that he would just keep on lying to people for the rest of his life. He couldn't do it anymore. To be fair, he'd convinced himself in the beginning that it wasn't a lie they were telling Seph, more of a…neglecting the truth, but he wasn't stupid enough to believe it forever.

Some part of him had hoped that, with time, what he had said to Lisbon would be right: that the facade would eventually just turn into the truth and they could all but forget about the real story, the one that he was secretly so terrified of. For Jane had spent six years trying to convince himself that it'd never happened, and for the most part he was all too willing to be persuaded, to be able to look at Seph without fear or guilt or the world going dark. But lies had their own kind of darkness, and for one of the first times in his life Jane was more frightened by that.

Of course, Lisbon refused to even hear his argument and changed the subject immediately each time he brought it up. Once upon a time, he would have kept pushing and pushing, using up all of his cunning ways until she had no choice but to agree with him; now, however, he found that arguing with her wasn't half as successful as it used to be. She wasn't, after all, just another easily deceivable person whose admittance or consent mattered more than her being. She was Reese.

And so her stubbornness and his dark acceptance continued on for nearly two months, neither bending to the other: Seph spent around three days refusing to talk to them, then let it all go in the way kids did and the way Jane wished he could remember how to do. Lisbon spent three days on forced maternity leave and promptly refused to do so on the fourth, so Jane let her return to work under the compromise that she'd stay out of the field. She felt triumphant, he knew, but what she was unaware of was that those three days had been the most empty of his life.

There was nothing at all special about the morning she changed her mind-no tactic from him, no oblivious prompt from Seph, no case about children and lies to get her thinking. He just strode into her office with a new read on the Ryan Bishop case, when her eyes clasped onto his and the sad clarity in them was so immediate that it took him a moment to react. She didn't need to say anything, and neither did he; he simply pulled the door back open as she stood (carefully, because Emma was due in two weeks) and moved heavily past him.

Seph was sitting on his Dad's couch, muttering away to himself, lazily shuffling the deck of cards he'd got for his birthday, and the instant he glanced across the room and saw them Lisbon stopped and turned, sudden panic on her face.

'He's only six, Jane,' she whispered in a sort of final plead, a desperate last stand.

An unasked question that Jane had no answer to, that left him with nothing to say but, 'I know.'

'Mom, Dad,' Seph called out to them, 'come see this new trick I learnt off YouTube, it's _awesome_…'

'Maybe later, honey, okay?' Lisbon answered him, lowering herself down onto the couch beside him, and as Jane wheeled over the chair from Grace's desk Seph silenced his response, watching Jane sit down, sensing that this was important. Jane took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, a desperate attempt that almost worked until he made the mistake of meeting Seph's eyes; those big, green innocent eyes that stared up at him behind a veil of such trust and warmth. They'd never look at him the same way after this. And with this realisation came the terror, pouring through him, making the words stop their ascent in his throat and suddenly he couldn't breathe. Adamant that the fear must be showing on his face, he glanced over to Lisbon for solace but she couldn't give him any, her face awash with dread, her eyes glued to the floor. So Jane closed his eyes, and searched the darkness for scraps of his own strength.

'You have no idea,' he eventually forced out, 'how much I love you, Seph. You are one of the two most important people in my life, and I would do _anything_…' Jane felt himself choking up and abandoned the sentence. 'And I love your mother as well,' he started again, his gaze flickering briefly to hers, 'but you have to understand…before you were born, it was hard for me to love anyone because of…' he swallowed. 'Because of a man we were trying to catch, who'd done terrible things to lots of people including me, and including your Mom.'

'What did he do?'

And as Jane told the story, he felt the memories rise up around him until they were the only things he knew.

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><p><strong>Seven Years Ago.<strong>

The door swung open with a deafening screech and before any of the Agents could stop him, Jane was inside.

And he ran, stumbled, fought the darkness that rushed at him, for his fear of falling was far less than his fear that they might be too late. He didn't know (because they were meaningless things) whether his eyes were open or closed, which direction he was going in, whether the blindness would end soon or whether he would just be trapped forever in the wrong place, searching, shouting…until at the corner of his eye there was a thin trail of light, spearing out from the black, and he felt his way towards it. A moment later and he could make out the bottom of a wooden door, under which the soft light filtered out. All of a sudden, his steps were filled with a knowing dread; he'd done this before, the slow walk to a door hiding only horrors, and some part of him begged him to turn around and run.

But another part of him was filled with a different kind of panic, a newer brand, an adrenaline that rushed him to the door and made his fingers shake violently as he wrenched it open. The opposite wall bore no smiley face but he didn't notice this enough to feel relief. Jane barely even noticed how his eyes stung from the sudden light. All he saw was her.

She was crumpled on the old bed in sad surrender, motionless and completely naked, bruises painting purple and green all over her body. From where Jane was standing, he could see the bedsheets stained crimson in between her legs and for a moment he had to steady himself, dazed by the horrid reality of what the blood meant had happened, feeling the violent urge to be sick. But he controlled the nausea, forced himself to take a step forward and a while later had found the edge of the bed: pressing his fingers gently to the side of her neck, he tried desperately to keep them from trembling and closed his eyes, praying for her pulse.

For one long, sickening moment, she didn't have one.

And then she did.

Almost crying out in relief, Jane opened his eyes in time to see the minute but definite rise and fall of her chest, but too late to remember that she was naked. And she would hate that he'd seen. Shrugging off his jacket, he laid it over her like a blanket and then returned to her head to discover that her eyes were open; blinking once, twice, she dimly met his gaze but there was no spark of recognition. And suddenly, his nausea froze into a blind hatred for the bastard who'd deprived him of a life and then cast a dark, degrading shadow over hers: after all, Red John would never have done such a horrible, uncharacteristically _venereal_ thing to her if he hadn't known how much it would hurt him…

It was all his fault, yet again. And their dark chase was met with no arrest, no reward-Red John was long gone. Yet again.

Jane wanted to take a gun, screw his morals, and shoot anyone who ever so much as touched her from here on out. But he didn't do that; instead, he just sat on the floor, positioned his head close to hers and listened to her breathe.

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><p><strong>Six Years and Ten Months Ago.<strong>

'Jane.'

'Hey, Lisbon,' he greeted her, as he finished stirring his tea and dropped the spoon loudly into the CBI sink.

'Can I ask you a question?' she queried after a moment.

'Sure,' he replied, and then, 'my answer's yes.'

'What?'

'Yes, you should arrest Natalie Finch for murder.' He took his tea and turned around, poised for her objection-to the naked, unobservant eye, there was no evidence at all which pointed to Finch-but then he glimpsed the solemness in her eyes and knew it wasn't case-related. Knew it was the conversation he'd been subconsciously waiting for her to start for a while now. But it didn't necessarily mean that he could answer her question; a second later, though, he decided to let her words do the subtle persuading, not his.

'Do you want to be a Mom?' he asked.

'Well…well, yes, I kind of do actually,' she admitting, smiling slightly. He shrugged matter-of-factly.

'Then what's the problem?'

'You _know_ what the problem is, Jane.' He did, of course he did, and the routine darkness swirled through him when he thought about it, a darkness that so obviously haunted her as well. Because she might be standing physically healed before him but he knew she wasn't okay, not on the inside, not yet. 'If the father was…a banker, or a lawyer, or-or even you'-he inwardly winced at that-'then that would be okay. I could live with that. But the fact that it's _Red John_, and that it happened in…' she paused to compose herself, '…in the way that it did…I'm going to be raising something half-serial killer, half-cop. Those are some screwed up genetics for you, right there.' She laughed bitterly, and Jane carefully set his cup of tea back down on the bench before taking a step forward.

'It's not some disgusting demon child you've got there, you know,' he informed her earnestly. 'It's a baby. A real, live, kicking, screaming baby that if you keep you're going to fall in love with from the very first moment, because once it's in your life there's no other way to be. Regardless of who the father is.' Lisbon seemed surprised at his miniature speech, as was he, but equally present in his mind were his beloved memories of Ange and Charlie, taped together with his own hazy idea of what Lisbon's mother and father looked like. All the people who had once been loved, by him and by her, who had been taken away.

'It's not my decision,' he said quietly. 'I can't make it for you and you'd shoot me if I tried. But sometimes, Lisbon, when you lose people and you get the chance to love someone new, you've got to take it with both hands.'

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><p><strong>Six and a Half Years Ago.<strong>

'Harry.'

'Boy wizard with glasses.' Lisbon smirked into the baby name book and he added threateningly, 'don't you dare say Hermione'.

'I wasn't going to!' she insisted and drew her legs up onto the CBI couch to sit cross-legged, her rapidly growing stomach jutting out. 'Anyway, it's a horrible name, it sounds like some sort of fungus.' As she turned the page, Jane took a sip of tea and she continued with: 'Isabella.'

'Absolute princess,' he stated after a moment's consideration.

'Is that a bad thing?'

'Yeah, it is. I mean, it'll be okay at first, the spoiling, but then suddenly she'll be five and wanting a unicorn because you didn't want to stamp out her beliefs just yet. And when you can't give her what she wants, well…' he let his sentence trail off and she looked at him pointedly. 'What?' he asked.

'This isn't going very well, is it.'

'No,' he agreed, and grinned. After weeks of dead ends and fruitless searching, she'd finally cornered him that morning and explained-rather embarrassedly, he'd thought-that since his daughter's name had been Charlotte, then he must have a half-decent taste in names and therefore he had to help her. They'd been on his couch for nearly half an hour now, no ongoing case to distract them from the fact that they'd come up with nothing: and as she flicked forward another few pages, he again lifted his tea to his lips and idly wondered whether there even _was _a name out there that they somehow both agreed on.

'Jay,' she voiced.

'Bit too close to Jane, don't you think?'

'It'd be handy, though. I could yell at you both at the same time.' She absentmindedly turned another page, and Jane was momentarily caught by her changing expression as her eyes fell on a name. Subconsciously, or perhaps not, she traced the word with her finger and murmured, 'Joseph.'

'Who was he?' he asked slowly, carefully, but he needn't have worried because she answered him almost instantly without so much as a questioning look.

'My brother.' She inhaled shakily. 'My fourth little brother, Joey. He died when he was six months old, stopped breathing in the middle of the night. Just like that.' She glanced at him with a sad smile, the tears glinting behind her composure.

'It's a really nice name,' he told her softly.

'Yeah,' she agreed, 'but I can't…I can't name the baby that. Because then he'd be a Joey, and that'd just bring back all the grief and the blaming. And I don't think I'm strong enough to handle that.' For not the first time, Jane marvelled at how she let him in on these personal things now, things that once upon a time she would have never let him hear. It did nothing but prove how unexpectedly close they'd become over the past few months.

'He doesn't have to be a Joey,' he told her. 'You'd think up some other nickname for him.' She didn't look at him, her eyes glazed over in remembrance. He said, 'and you don't know it's even a boy yet, remember?'

'Yeah, that's true, it could be a girl.' She focused her gaze again and lowered it to her stomach, still wistful; it was a sadness that looked so very wrong on her, that made Jane want to chase it away as quickly as possible.

So he announced, 'Joseph. Bearded shepherd who never got any.' And he got the result he was after; Lisbon's dejection evaporated almost immediately as she laughed, then hit him across the shoulder with the baby name book. But some part of her mind was evidently still drifting over thoughts of her family, because she turned to him then in all seriousness, a state that made Jane sit up and listen.

'I don't want…' she swallowed, then started again. 'I don't want the baby growing up without a father. Because_ I_ did, and I'd be a terrible parent if I let anyone else go through that same kind of misery. So, what I'm asking, Jane…' she gathered herself. 'Would you…could you…be a sort of father-figure to it, maybe? Not full-time parenthood,' she assured him, 'God no. Just, just to be it's Dad, when it needs one.' He was silent for a moment, overwhelmed by her words, immensely touched that she would ask him something so personal. She misread his speechlessness and added quickly, 'I completely understand if you can't, especially if it's a girl…'

'No, Lisbon, actually, that's one of the nicest…' it was his turn to be unable to finish sentences, and so he didn't justify but simply answered. 'Of course I'll do it.'

Her smile was full of such relief and gratitude that it captured him for a moment, leaving him wondering why he'd never before noticed that she was actually rather beautiful.

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><p><strong>Present Day.<strong>

It took a few seconds for the memories to fall back down again, for Jane to sink back into reality, his eyes burning into the floor. He'd censored quite a few of the violent details for Seph's sake, but it was nonetheless the same story and it did what he'd needed it to: it had told the truth. A naked truth that now hung in the air with enough weight to pull them all down with it, accompanied by an agonising silence that only left when a harsh, stubborn voice commanded it to.

'You're lying, Dad,' Seph told him angrily. 'It's not real, none of that's real, you're my Dad and you just made all that up to scare me.'

'Seph, why on Earth would I lie to you about _this_?' To convey his honesty he forced his gaze upward to meet Seph's, and suddenly found it very hard to speak but knew that he needed to. 'As much as I hate it,' he spat out, 'it's what _happened_, it's the _truth_…'

'It's not the Goddamn _TRUTH_!' Seph bellowed, but behind the fire in his eyes there were tears. 'You're _lying_, Dad,' he repeated, as if saying it would make it true, 'you're _lying_, you're my Dad…he's _lying_, Mom!' But there were bitter tears falling down Lisbon's face, and when Seph saw them his argument fell away. He glanced back at Jane one more time, pleading, and then his tiny face was shaking with the force of his sobs and he was reaching for his Mom. She couldn't take him onto her lap like she so clearly wanted to; instead, she pulled him to her side and hugged him as best she could, kissing the top of his head, sharing his pain.

And Jane could do nothing but stare at the place where Seph had been moments before, petrified to feel, knowing that the moment he did the horror of what he'd done and what he'd just destroyed would come to meet him.

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><p><strong>Please review! It would mean a lot if you did.<strong>

******TAJ :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Firstly, let me say how grateful I am for all these reviews; I'm sorry I couldn't reply to all of you personally, I haven't had time this week. Anyway, this one's set a week after Seph learns that Jane isn't his Dad. I hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: Do you think, if I changed my name to Bruno Heller, that'd work?**

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><p><strong>September 6th (One Week Later)<strong>

Grace typed idly on her computer, then adjusted her seat once, twice, pulled her hair into a ponytail, tidied her desk and then, when she had so evidently run out of things to do, stood and reached for her coffee mug, bound for the CBI kitchen. But before she could take so much as a step, Rigsby's gentle hands began to unpick her fingers from the handle and he told her softly, 'No more coffee.'

'But…'

'Grace, if you have any more caffeine you're going to start bouncing off the walls.' She pouted at him for a moment and then sighed, letting him take the mug and set it back down on her desk. When he turned back to her, there were undertones of sadness sweeping across her face and he stated simply, 'you miss them already.'

'A little,' she said and when he raised his eyebrow she admitted, 'a lot. They're my _babies_, Wayne, of course I miss them.' Grace had returned to work that morning, her maternity leave over and the twins settling in with their new nanny.

'Hey,' Rigsby squeezed her hand comfortingly, 'they're mine too, remember?'

'Yeah, but you weren't with them all day every day for ten months…' she took a deep breath. 'It's just weird, that's all, not having them here with me. I feel a bit incomplete.' Her eyes met his and he must have spied a certain fragility in them because he pulled her to him then, resting his chin on the top of her head.

'It'll be fine,' he told her. 'This is just an adjustment period you're going through, it'll get better.'

'I know,' she sighed again, and they were unmoving for a few seconds before she pulled back, just far enough to be able to kiss him lightly on the lips.

'Watch it, Grace,' Lisbon warned from the doorway, all too aware that they had to be so very careful of what they did at work. A dominant part of the agreement they'd fought so hard for, the one that kept them working together, was the promise that there would be absolutely no intimacy in the workplace like there was now.

'Sorry, Boss,' Grace smiled sheepishly, and she might once have stalked off with a warning on her face Lisbon now smiled back. She really didn't expect them to stand here in the bullpen and act like strangers. Love didn't let you do that. After all, she'd been secretly watching their exchange for several minutes (Jane would scold her if he saw her; she really shouldn't be standing up for any length of time, since Emma was only a week away) and could have stopped it at any point but was too busy enviously wondering what it would be like to be part of such a family, one with no rough edges or dark secrets to speak of. Normalcy, simplicity. Happiness. She sighed, and was about to turn away from the bullpen when she felt her cell phone vibrate against her leg, and pulled it from her pocket.

'Lisbon,' she answered.

'Teresa, hi, it's Alana.' And when no chords were struck in her mind, the voice added, 'Seph's school principal?'

'Oh, right,' Lisbon said quickly, 'of course.' And as Alana-Mrs Howard, she remembered-kept talking, she heard footsteps behind her and Jane traipsed past, absentmindedly stirring his tea. But his eyes then latched onto hers, and his expression darkened in accordance with her own as she listened.

'Okay,' she said eventually, because she could think of nothing better to say. 'I'll be there soon.' Hanging up, she slowly returned the phone to her pocket, then met Jane's eye. 'Seph was in a fight,' she announced dazedly. 'He broke a boy's nose. The school's suspended him for the rest of today and tomorrow.'

'What?' Jane asked, but it wasn't a question so much as evidence of his disbelief, an emotion that currently ran through her as well. Despite having law enforcement officers for parents, she'd never once seen Seph become physically violent. He'd never been that type of kid, and it hurt her to think that he might be turning into one.

'I'll be back in twenty minutes,' she announced, 'I have to go get him.'

'You shouldn't be driving, Reese,' he told her. But the understanding and acceptance between them was clear, as clear as if one of them had said it out loud for all the world to hear. If he pulled up at the school instead of her, Seph would not get in the car. The boy hadn't uttered a single word to him all week, hadn't once glanced in his direction or mentioned him in conversations with Lisbon: it was almost as if Jane no longer existed. And it broke her heart each and every time Jane looked at his son, _his son_, and couldn't get a response or even acknowledgement. It was worse than anger, a thousand times worse, and the sadness that Jane was permanently draped in radiated from his eyes now, following her as she headed slowly to her office for her keys.

Ten minutes later, she'd finally managed to shake off the last of his misery as she pulled up out the front of the school. Seph was already sitting out on the steps, his head buried in his knees, his backpack beside him and a middle-aged woman waiting with him who Lisbon faintly remembered to be Alana Howard. The woman heard the sound of her car door, glanced up and tapped Seph gently on the shoulder: wordlessly, he reached for his backpack and trudged darkly to the car.

'I'm so sorry for all this,' she offered pathetically, closing the passenger door for him and then crossing her arms. 'Is the other boy okay?'

'Alex is at the hospital as we speak,' Alana answered, 'but it's nothing too serious. It's a real shame, though; today's his birthday. His Dad brought in a cake and everything.'

And Lisbon's stomach lurched in realisation as Seph's uncharacteristic violence fell into perfect clarity, into reasons of jealousy and sadness that she understood very well. It was never fair or clear, why the world gave some people perfect lives and others only glimpses at such, and she didn't expect Seph to comprehend or accept it just yet. God knew it had taken her a very long time to do so. 'Okay, thanks,' she managed to smile, and as Alana turned and retreated back up the steps Lisbon braced herself for the coldness that would certainly choke her the moment she opened her door.

Seph stared ahead with nothing in his eyes, no reaction at all as the engine crackled into life and the radio flickered on, if only for a moment before she decided against it. They sat in a silence ten minutes long in theory, but in reality ten years, and made even more unbearable by the balance of Lisbon's need to speak against her fear of getting angry at him. In her mind she saw Jane, his life emptied of light within the space of a week, but to her right she saw her son, who no longer saw any light at all either. Who to blame? They should never have lied to him in the first place. There shouldn't have been any lie to begin with. She shouldn't have been raped.

Red John turned out to be a very easy person to blame, so she did that.

But when she parked in the CBI parking lot and glanced over, she suddenly couldn't find such accusations in her anymore, couldn't see any point in holding someone responsible for the pain ravaging the two people she cared about most. She didn't care whose fault it was. She just wanted it all to stop.

'Seph, honey,' she began, trying to be gentle, 'I know why you hit Alex, I do, but you can't just go around hitting all the boys who have Dads.'

'Why not?' His question was quiet and brimming with restrained anger, but Lisbon was only surprised that she'd got a reaction at all.

'Because they don't deserve it. They've done nothing wrong.' He didn't reply, only sank back down into his dark silence, and suddenly all of Lisbon's fury came rushing back to meet her. It was an emotion she tried desperately to keep out of her voice. 'Look, I know you're only six and you've been through a lot, but I have to talk to you like you're a grown-up because there isn't any other way to say it. Do you have _any_ idea how much you're hurting your Dad by not talking to him?'

'He's not my…'

'_Yes_, he _is_. He's more your Dad than anyone else in the whole world, and you have _no idea_ how much he's given up for you. How much he's done.'

'What's he _done,_ then, Mom?' Seph shouted, his eyes ablaze with more hatred than a six-year-old should ever possess. 'What's he _given up_?'

And she told him.

* * *

><p><strong>Six Years Ago.<strong>

'You _bastard_, don't you dare touch him!' she shrieked, lunging forward, but her tied hands and ankles rendered her only sideways on the floor.

'No, no, Teresa,' Red John told her calmly. 'You have it all wrong. Of the two of us, I believe it's actually Joseph here who's the bastard. Besides,' he smiled, 'doesn't every man have the right to hold his son?'

From where she'd fallen, the words hit her back and her mind launched into overdrive, frantic, desperate, searching for some sort of plan. It was a search that failed miserably yet again, the terror pulsing through her leaving her blind to any sort of logic, and she could find the composure only to pull herself into a sitting position. But the poise only held for a moment before she looked up and saw her tiny, innocent newborn in the hands of a murderer, and her apartment blurred as her vision whitened in rage.

'He's got your eyes, you know,' Red John commented, brushing his finger idly over Seph's brow, making her want to vomit. 'And you do have such beautiful eyes: as a matter of fact, Teresa, you're a very striking woman in general. It seems a shame that little Joseph has to have any of me in him at all.'

'You're Goddamn right,' she snarled but he didn't hear her, still caught on the path of his own thoughts.

'And yet he does,' he continued. 'He has my DNA. Quite the useful tool in tracking down criminals these days, isn't it? Very dangerous, for a, shall we say, _delinquent_ like myself to leave such a trail behind. Which is why, regretfully, I cannot.' The flick of his knife gleamed against the light, only a millisecond before Lisbon began to scream: no, _no, _he couldn't do this, couldn't take away Seph…couldn't rip from her the most perfect thing she had in the world…

'You so much as draw blood and I will kill you where you stand.' The voice was coated in so much coldness that it was at first unrecognisable, but then the familiarity of its pitch struck a chord and she turned her head toward the sound, trying to blink her way through her tears, eventually glimpsing the shape of a figure standing in front of her. She couldn't see him clearly but his presence felt, to her, heroic, and his words so brave that she knew it couldn't be anyone but Jane.

Red John sighed, and as her tears slowly dried up she saw him look mildly irritated by the interruption, lowering the knife, and her heart started beating again. She hadn't the courage to glance up at Jane but saw the glint from his knife, shining in a silence dented only by Seph's high cries, a sound which stained her shirt with the aching breast milk seeping through. 'I suppose I'll have to deal with you first then, Mr Jane,' he announced, and gently lowered Seph to the kitchen table. Lisbon cried out in relief and the sound was weak, strangled. 'How unfortunate for you, however that you brought along a knife: if you'd had a gun I might very well be dead already. Now I guess you'll have to come over here to kill me, and how awful would it be if, whilst you were doing that, my hand just…slipped.' The hand grasping his knife hovered over Seph's throat, and she screamed again. 'So I suppose…you have a choice to make. And a very important one, might I add.'

Despite her fear and rage and numbness, Lisbon saw clearly the decision wavering before Jane. If he chose his revenge, there was a chance Seph could be killed (and violent panic reared its head at the thought) but if he didn't leap on this chance at retribution then he might never again get the same chance. It was a crossroad she had never wanted him to face, and now that he was at it she drooped her head in heartbroken acceptance, knowing deep down that he would always choose his old family over his new, adopted one. And so her nails dug into the rope binding her wrists at her back and she sawed with all the strength she had; maybe, if she could get herself free, she could snatch Seph away before either man could make his move, and then she'd run. It was a foolish plan, but it was her-their-only hope.

Or so she thought.

Until suddenly, rather than move forward like his dark, vindictive prophecy dictated, Jane took a measured step backward until his leg was only an inch or so from the side of her head. In slow, numb disbelief, she leant against him as if making sure he was really there, and his raging warmth took all of a second to become her lifeline. If he didn't know what to do in such a situation, then no-one did, and this one thought calmed her enough to realise the reasoning in his decision. Of course there'd be another chance to get his revenge, a scene without a week-old-baby at risk, just them and their hatred. But there would never be another Seph.

Red John sighed again, this time not in annoyance but almost repentance. 'That's too bad,' he said. 'Now I have to kill all of you.'

The gunshot was so sudden and so unexpected that it took a moment to even register, and another moment after that to link the sound to the action. It wasn't until Red John's knife clattered to the floor, and his body not long after, that she allowed herself to believe that it had happened, and she glanced up in insensibility as Cho stepped calmly from the shadows of her apartment, his gun still raised. And then Jane was kneeling down in front of her, taking her face in his shaking hands, asking her something she didn't hear, and she was crying again, the sobs this time uncontrollable, and waves of dizzying relief racking her entire body. He reached around her to untie her wrists, her face pressing into his shoulder: the moment she was free, her arms locked around his neck and he pulled her up strongly onto unreliable legs. Step by step, she learnt to walk again and almost threw herself at the table, taking a bawling Seph into her arms, murmuring things she didn't even understand, kissing him everywhere there was skin.

'He's dead,' Cho announced, drawing his fingers back from the wrist which had once held a knife, standing to avoid the rapidly pooling blood. 'Red John is dead.' The sentence carried such a definite weight with it that it almost forced her gaze to Jane, aware of how long he had been waiting for that sentence but on more self-serving terms. And his expression was lined with many things, thousands of undefinable layers, but two emotions which she didn't glimpse were the frustration and the rage that she would expect to be almost routine in a result like this: after all, there had been a death but no vengeance. And then it hit her, brutally, leaving her breathless. Jane had brought Cho with him. He'd known from the very first moment that he wouldn't be the one to kill Red John.

'You…you gave it up for us.' He turned wearily toward her and she met his gaze in astonishment. Slowly, she said, 'You chose us over your revenge.'

He smiled.

* * *

><p><strong>Present Day.<strong>

As Lisbon's words dwindled away, a brief silence settled in and she watched Seph's face as the anger, slowly but surely, evaporated. Like Jane had, she'd skimmed over the more violent details and yet some part of her wondered bleakly how much more her poor little son could absorb before it was all too much. It wasn't fair, it really wasn't.

'Do you see now, honey?' Her voice was strangely serene. 'Your Dad might not be your real father, but that doesn't mean he's not your Dad. Because there's a _big_ difference.'

'Kay,' he muttered, looking almost deflated beneath his seatbelt, but there was no hint of protest and she took that as a good sign. She opened her car door and moment later Seph did the same, leaving his backpack in the car, his face filled with many things but it wasn't until they were standing in the elevator that he said, 'Mom?'

'Yeah, Seph.'

'Sorry I hit Alex.'

'That's alright. Just don't do it again, okay? School is no place for violence.'

'What if I join the CBI like you and Dad and we have to chase a man through a school, can I use violence then?'

'That depends; what did he do?'

'He killed three people. No, four. And they were _lawyers_.'

'Well, then, I think you're going to _have_ to be violent with him.' Seph grinned in triumph and Lisbon inwardly chided herself for not stamping out the aggression entirely from his mind. But she didn't miss his returning to calling Jane 'Dad' or the smile she hadn't seen for a week, and so couldn't quite find it in her to be strict, only relieved.

Jane was lying on his couch with his eyes closed, but Lisbon knew all too well that he wasn't asleep; after all, the nights weren't half as dark for him anymore and he slept then. She placed a hand gently at Seph's back and he gazed up at her, nervous; she smiled in comfort, and he slowly made his way to the couch. Jane noticed him after a moment and sat up, his face covered in surprise. They shared a conversation so private and quiet that Lisbon could only hear murmurings, but she didn't creep closer, knowing whatever they were saying was to be kept by them only; at her desk almost in front of her Grace watched the proceedings too with a gentle smile. A moment later, Seph stepped forward and Jane wrapped his arms gently around him, the little boy's arms snaking around his neck, and as Jane met her gaze through watery eyes he mouthed, 'thank you.' She smiled, overcome by a rush of overwhelming pride and affection for the two on the couch.

But then, all of a sudden, she felt something snap inside her and a second later moisture made its slow way down her thigh; her legs wobbly-so wobbly-with the weight of her stomach, she reached for the top of Grace's chair to steady herself, and the redhead glanced at her.

'You okay, Boss?' she asked, concerned. But Lisbon's eyes searched only for Jane's, and the happiness on his face faded to immediate anticipation. Seph disentangled himself, turned, then said, 'Mom, what's wrong?'

'As nice as all this is,' she announced shakily, 'I think…I think my water just broke.'

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading, please review!<strong>

**TAJ :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**So it's officially midnight in Australia; I promised myself I'd finish it today, and here we go! Thanks so much again to everyone who's reviewed. This one's a little bit shorter than the last ones have been, and I really hope you enjoy reading it because it was a very hard thing for me to write, emotionally.**

**Disclaimer: Bruno owns it.**

**Oh, also, I have never been in labour and thus only know what I Googled this morning :)**

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><p><strong>A Few Hours Later<strong>

'You're standing in an elevator,' the smooth voice said, 'and standing around you is all the pain that you want to get rid of.' In her mind, she leant one trembling hand against the railing along the wall, pulled herself together and glanced around her at the dark figures also sharing the space, their faces hanging in shadow but the dim light above keeping them visible. 'Now, the elevator starts moving,' she felt the usual lurch as they descended, 'and each time it stops some of the pain gets out, just enough to make you feel a little better-a little more peaceful-until suddenly you arrive at the final stop, alone, calm, and the doors open only for you.' True to the voice's word, with every time the imaginary doors parted another shadowy figure stepped out and disappeared. By the time the elevator came to rest at the last stop, her hands were no longer shaking and she felt overtaken by such a serenity that when the doors opened, she felt as if it was her destiny to walk through. As if by taking this one last step, she would be completely calm and painless and nothing would be able to drag her back down again.

But as she started forward the doors suddenly flew back to meet each other, the overhead light shattered into darkness and all of the pain came galloping back, stronger than ever, the dingy elevator walls fading abruptly into the dark grey of her eyelids. She opened her eyes, focused fiercely on the wooden frame at the end of the hospital bed and reached for the hand she knew was there, riding the agony with a locked jaw for what seemed like hours until it finally numbed again, leaving her gasping.

'Try it again,' she ordered Jane hurriedly when she'd got her breath back. 'Quick, before another one comes.'

But he shook his head, his eyes still on the clock hanging from the opposite wall. 'Reese, those last two contractions were only forty-one seconds apart and they're just going to get closer together. Hypnosis doesn't work when you've got a time frame, or when the subject's…'

'…me,' Lisbon finished, glaring at him. 'It never works when it's me, why the hell not?'

'Some people just can't be hypnotised,' he offered gently. 'Besides, you don't need it. You've done this before, remember?' He held her in his gaze for the briefest of moments, and she might have said something equally tender if his utter sweetness hadn't been aggravating her from the moment her water broke. Her common sense explained that he was just trying to defuse her a little, but it really wasn't helping and the only unaggressive response she could muster was no response at all.

'Drugs aren't working either,' she muttered, her glare now hitting the mask and hand pump attached to the side of the bed. 'When did the nurse say she was coming back?'

'When the contractions are less than thirty seconds apart.'

'Ugh.' The thought of sitting there just waiting for the pain to find her was the worst thing she'd ever heard, so she took a deep breath in preparation and slowly dragged her legs to the edge of the bed.

'What're you doing?'

'Going for a walk,' she told him, and automatically he stood to help her up. And it would have been a comforting gesture, had a contraction not chosen to sweep violently through her at that moment; wheezing, she paused and he tightened his hold on her. 'Jane, don't,' she warned, and when he didn't seem to hear her she shouted, '_Don't_ touch me!' Through the pain torturing her lower body, she saw him recoil, and found her own stubborn way onto her feet; taking a long, deep breath as the contraction fell away, she took step after agonising step forward but it was only when she reached the end of the bed that she realised what she'd said.

'Oh, God,' she exclaimed, turning to face him in horror, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.'

'It's okay,' he smiled knowingly, still standing. 'Thirty-six seconds, by the way.'

'That's less than forty-one.'

'Yes, Reese,' he smirked bravely, 'well done.'

'Shut up, I'm pissed off and you're _not _helping.' She took three slow steps around the end of the bed, one hand on her stomach as if to keep the pain confined, her heart racing with anxiety. How could anyone ever expect her to be calm, when she felt like she was going to be split in half and there was only more suffering to come? A distraction. She needed a distraction. So she shifted her gaze to Jane, who had sat back down, and asked loudly, 'so how was your day?'

He gave her a strange look, but didn't question it and she was grateful. 'My day?' She nodded, and he said, 'Well, today I got my son back.'

'And how's that going for you?' He laughed, such a genuine sound that it sent a warmth under her skin, and opened his mouth to reply but then she asked, 'Actually, where _is _Seph?'

'In the waiting room,' he answered, 'with everyone else.'

'Good. They better stay there, too.' Inwardly, Lisbon looked with incredulity at herself, at her rapidly jumping alternation between so very angry-for no good reason-and otherwise, but she had no hope of controlling it. 'Because if they take one step inside this room…'

'They're fired, yeah, I know,' he cut her off, and she looked at him in confusion.

'How did you know what I was going to say?'

He smiled. 'You gave out the same threat last time.'

The reply was lingering on her tongue, on the very verge of being said, but then the realisation hit her with enough force to send the syllables crashing back down her throat, almost choking her, and she had to swallow before she could breathe again. _Last time_. Six years ago, she had given out the same harsh instructions as she did now; she'd hidden behind her walls and never let anyone in, never let anyone try. She hadn't changed, not one bit; she was still blocking out everyone who didn't want to be, convincing herself that it was for their own good: after all, she was only saving them from the hurt and the pain that she was all too aware human nature could inflict. But what had hit her with such clarity was that it wasn't Jane or anyone else who needed to be saved, protected.

It was her. She needed saving from herself.

She felt the surging torture as another contraction came, but this time it was numbed considerably by the dissolving of all her anger. She felt close to nothing for a moment, and then suddenly came a great rush of emotion, a blinding warmth for Emma's father, Seph's Dad. Her Consultant. She'd broken his heart more times than anyone deserved, given him room to hope and then snatched it so very cruelly away, and yet he was still there in front of her with his arms spread wide, waiting for her without shame and without fear. But what if she couldn't break down her walls on her own? What if she left him waiting forever?

'Reese, what's the matter?' She met his concerned gaze, the intensities running through her surely visible on the outside by now. And suddenly, the fury returned, but this time it was directed at herself.

'Me. I'm the matter.' She looked down, and the words came dripping in rage. 'You're so nice to me, Patrick, you're so Goddamn _nice _and I've been treating you like _crap_.' Lisbon felt the tears well, drop and fall, and was powerless to stop them. Another contraction broke the surface but she spoke through it, having never felt so unlike herself but in equal measure never needing to say something quite so much as she needed to say this. 'I'm making you wait for me when I don't even know how to fix myself…and it's not _fair. _I'm so screwed up, and I'm so _scared_ and you…you're not doing _any _of it right!' She half-sobbed, half-gasped, and he said nothing. 'When I want to let go, you have to hold me tighter…you have to _help_ me _be _with you, okay?' And as she looked straight at him, the words came as naturally as if she'd known them all along. 'Because I love you too, Goddamnit, and you've got to stop letting me forget.'

There was a heavy wordlessness that followed her, and in it she found composure, wiped her tears, glanced down to see her fingers shaking. Like they had in the imaginary elevator but this time for a very different reason, a reason which escaped her but unnerved her nonetheless. When she found the courage to look at him, there was a beauty on his face and in his eyes that shook her to her core; a look that made her wonder if her last sentence made up for all the others.

'Stop smiling,' she told him, frustrated with his simple response, but his expression was infectious and a moment later a grin was spreading across her face as well. She couldn't help it; she loved him. She was in love with him, and now that she'd said it out loud it was so obvious: vaguely, her common sense returned to warn her that she was looking at him now like she'd always hated him looking at her, but ironically she couldn't make herself stop.

'Do you want to know something?' Jane asked suddenly. She nodded, expecting some sort of tender confession, something that would make her speech appear somewhat less soul-baring. But he simply said, 'Those last two contractions were twenty-two seconds apart.'

'Really?' she asked dumbly. He nodded, they shared a look-her fear to his anticipation-and then he stood to press the button on the wall, the signal for assistance required. And it took Lisbon a moment, too caught up in her own thoughts, to realise the blurriness with which she saw him do this, as if a child was colouring in her vision outside the lines. She felt the world spin a little uncertainly around her, and reached out a hand to steady herself on the bed frame: but her sight was useless and her fingers only brushed the wooden surface, dropping, taking the rest of her with it. 'Jane,' she managed to breathe, but when he turned she saw only his outline.

And she tried to say 'help,' but by then she was already falling.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the cliff-hanger, I know it's mean. But if all goes well, Chapter 11 will be up in two days. There'll be 12 in all. Please review!<strong>

**TAJ :)**


	11. Chapter 11

**LAurore, I officially give you permission to come to my house and bang my head against the wall :) I'm sorry I took so long to update, I hope the chapter makes up for it. On another note, thank you for all the reviews! I've never had a story get over 100 reviews before, so maybe...this time...? **

**Anyway, haha. I still know absolutely nothing about medical procedures and hospitals, and I've probably made lots of mistakes there but please don't judge the chapter on that. **

**Disclaimer: not mine.**

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><p><strong>An Hour Later.<strong>

It was the same waiting room as last time, that morning so long ago when Seph was born; the very same clock haunted Jane once again with it's _tick, tock_, and the same old television sat discreetly in the corner. It was even the same chair across the room, the one he'd forced himself to occupy six years ago. And yet things were different. This time, the dusty television screen was blank, there was no _thump ca-plunk _of a ball ricocheting off a cabinet and whereas the window had once upon a time bathed them them all in sunlight, it now offered only stars and shadows. They were all here again-Grace, Rigsby, Cho and him, with the addition of Seph-but barely, sharing an unanswerable silence, a stagnancy that made him feel worse with every second. Unconsciously, Seph shifted the side of his head against Jane's leg, taking up most of the couch as he slept: the action should have given him joy, made him feel like a father again, made him hopeful that things could return to how they were a week ago.

But he felt nothing. He was numb.

'Mr Jane?' The sudden noise startled him, and as the doctor noticed Seph he lowered his voice. 'We're bringing her out of consciousness now.'

'Oh…okay.' The news deserved more than that, but Jane didn't have the energy nor the will. He glanced down at Seph, the boy's face peaceful, and didn't want to risk waking him up by moving but inwardly knew that it was just an excuse: a cover for the reluctance, for his fear of being there when Lisbon woke up and started asking questions.

'I've got him, Jane, it's alright.' Grace gently lifted up Seph's head to let Jane stand, then quickly switched positions with him and gave him an encouraging smile, her face half-shrouded in darkness. He nodded in thanks, unable to smile back, and turned to follow the doctor out into the hallway; they walked wordlessly, and with each step Jane found it harder and harder to take another. Eventually, thankfully, they stopped and the doctor turned to him with cautious words.

'I understand if you don't wish to be the one to tell her,' he said. 'I've seen many husbands and fathers unable to give bad news to a loved one, and believe me, it doesn't make you any less of a man if you can't.' Jane knew the words were meant to console him but strangely enough they gave him a brief strength, just enough courage to shake his head.

'No,' he answered, 'she'd want to hear it from someone she knows.' The moment he'd said the words, all of his terror returned but he held it back, determined not to let the doctor see. One hand slowly twisting the white doorknob, the other man smiled at him gravely before pushing the door gently open; Jane closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, searching for the composure he needed but couldn't find, then followed him into the room.

Lisbon was lying motionlessly beneath crisp, white sheets, her skin pale with the light and her face angled toward Jane as he sat down; after a moment's hesitation, he gently threaded his fingers through hers and watched her face as her eyes flickered once, twice, then open. It took her a second to see him, and when the slow, tender, naive smile spread across her features Jane was incapable of looking at her anymore, understanding why so many men could not do this: because who would _want_ to look at a happiness they knew had been so long in the making, and then shatter it all with one sentence? What husband, or father, or brother or son, could ever _want _to be the one responsible for the misery and the pain that would follow?

'Jane,' she murmured, 'what…what happened?' But his words had all frozen, and his gaze had done likewise to the floor; he couldn't answer her, couldn't do this. A voice in his mind told him that things weren't as bad as they _could _be, not yet, but if both scenarios hurt her then to him there was no difference.

'Teresa, hello,' the doctor interjected, and Jane found it not half as terrifying to look at him instead. 'My name is Dr Frank Neeson.' And Lisbon may have been about to reply with a greeting or a question, but Jane would never know, because with his gaze still fixed shakily on the doctor he saw her other hand trail across her stomach. A stomach that was now flat. And he felt it then through her hand, as clearly as if he'd seen it on her face; the first fragment of fear, creeping across her, and the slight draining of happiness.

'Jane, where's Emma?' At the sound of her name, he swallowed and desperately pushed back the emotion that was threatening behind his eyes, opting for silence, knowing it would not be enough, and it wasn't. 'Look at me,' she breathed, squeezing his hand, 'Patrick, look at me.' Her voice was calmer than the situation deserved, smooth, warm, and it was as if she was hypnotising him because Jane found his gaze shifting upward, without any resistance, to connect with hers. The stunning green of her eyes held him captive in that moment, and then she softly repeated herself. 'Where's Emma?'

And suddenly, looking at her, Jane found the slightest amount of strength. It wasn't enough to speak calmly, or positively, but it was enough to force out the words and that was all he'd asked for.

'The umbilical cord was…' he faltered, then made himself continue. 'It was wrapped around her neck, Reese. Not enough to suffocate her, but when you fainted it…it tightened…' The emotion found its way back into his eyes and this time he couldn't push it back down, the beginning of tears gathering and blurring her face in his vision. 'And when you'd been carried back to the bed, one of the nurses wanted to check her heartbeat, just to be sure, but she could…she could barely hear it.' The memory rushed at him then, all the panic and terror as they'd rushed her away, and he took a deep breath to steady himself but it didn't work at all. 'They had to do an emergency Caesarean,' he finished, and stared at their interwoven hands fiercely, unable to look at her, at the doctor, at anywhere else bar the place where they connected.

'Is she okay?' Lisbon asked, her voice cracking on the very last syllable. But Jane had no strength left for any more words, none for a comforting gaze, only enough left to stop himself from falling apart.

'She's currently in Intensive Care,' Dr Neeson kindly answered for him, a calm, blank mask in place that he probably used every day. 'We're watching her very closely. If she makes it through the night, then there's a very good chance she'll live, but I have to be honest with you-it isn't all that likely.'

There was a long, heavy moment whilst Lisbon absorbed this information, and at first it didn't seem that she did, but then her hand once again found her stomach and she glanced down at the space, the emptiness; quickly, violently, she closed her eyes and took a long, shaky breath. Jane recognised it immediately, the brave attempt to block out her emotions, keep it all back, and she proved so much better at this than he'd been because then she looked at him, and her face was impassive, and she asked almost calmly, 'Have you seen her?'

'Not yet, I was waiting for you.' He didn't add that he'd waited because he needed her strength to get through it.

'Let's go then,' she announced suddenly, pulling the pristine sheets back so her feet could find the floor, her only evidence of weakness being the fact that she refused to let go of his hand.

'Teresa,' the doctor interrupted, stepping forward with concern on his face, 'your body is repairing itself at the moment, you really should not be walking around…'

'With all due respect, Doctor,' she said, and her eyes flared with sudden ferocity, 'I'm going to see my daughter, and you can't stop me.' Dr Neeson visibly flinched, and when he glanced over Jane added solemnly, 'Precautionary word of advice, Doc. Don't argue with her.'

Lisbon stood shakily and when she starting swaying Jane held her shoulder; 'I'm alright,' she breathed, and they shared a look, but it was only when she was completely still that he let go. Leaving the slightly stunned Dr Neeson staring after them, they made their slow, desensitised way down the hall toward Intensive Care, their fingers not yet unthreading; Jane had finally pushed his emotions back behind closed doors, but her hand had become his lifeline and he held onto it firmly, scared of what might happen if one of them let go.

Scared of many things, but somehow the warmth of her fingers kept him sane.

They passed the waiting room on the way, and when she saw them Grace mumbled to a now awake Seph who then sat up to let her stand; she shared a glance with Rigsby, who was also on his feet, and then approached them carefully. 'I'm so sorry, Lisbon,' she offered but when all she got was silence from both of them, she pressed on. 'Unless you want him here,' she said softly, 'Wayne and I'll take Seph back to my Mom's. He's so tired, and that couch is so uncomfortable. We'll get Connie on the way, too.'

'Thanks, Grace, that'd be really good.' Lisbon smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes, and Rigsby chose that moment to lead Seph over by the hand. The boy looked so small, and so scared, that Jane felt his heart tear a little at the edges, even more than it already had.

'Mom, Dad,' he looked up at them, 'what's going on?' For the briefest of moments, Jane felt the urge to protect him from the truth but the events of the past week made him swallow those sugar-coated words. No more lies. They owed him that much.

'Emma's sick, Seph,' he stated simply. 'She's really sick, and we have to stay here and look after her, okay?'

Seph's fists clenched as the words sunk in, and the fear shone in his eyes but he covered it with more courage than Jane and Lisbon had put together. 'Can't I stay too, then?' he asked defiantly. 'I want to stay too, I want to help.' His request was so beautiful, so brave for a child in an adult's world, that Jane's reply choked in his throat and the tears loomed once again, though once again they didn't fall. He glanced at Lisbon, needing whatever strength she had left, and she read his expression effortlessly.

'Sorry, honey,' she smiled sadly, 'we need you to go with your Aunt and Uncle. You need to get some sleep.' Bending down, she kissed him tenderly on the forehead and when she'd pulled back she said just loud enough for Jane to hear, 'Be brave, okay?' Holding back his tears, Seph nodded and let Rigsby lead him away, past them and around the corner until their darling little boy was out of sight. Cho had stood to leave with them too, nodding his condolences, and it was just him and her alone for a short, silent while until suddenly they heard, 'Reese.'

Before they'd even turned around, Jane knew exactly who it was; there was only one other person living in Sacramento, besides him, that called her Reese. James opened his arms in comfort as Lisbon stepped forward, letting go of Jane's hand in the process; immediately, his throat emptied of air and he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, could only stand there and try to suppress the panic as they hugged. The moment they'd stepped back from each other, her fingers returned to weave through his and its effect on him was instant, the air coming freely again, the anxiety fading.

'I came as soon as I could,' James told them. He looked dishevelled, as if he'd been running. 'I really wish there was something I could do.'

'Thanks, Jim,' she said, sincerity in her eyes, 'but we really need to go and see her, and we might be a while, so…'

'Sure, I understand,' he smiled, and his next words were directed at them both. 'But if you need anything at all, you call me, okay?' When he received only nods in compliance he took a step backward, as if to leave, and then as an afterthought told Lisbon quietly, 'Chin up, Rooster. It's not over yet.' Jane didn't understand the reference, but it made a little of Lisbon's smile reach her eyes and so he didn't question it after James had left, only tugged at her hand to pull her gently out of her trance and in the direction of Intensive Care.

The nurse recognised them the moment they entered the room; she'd been one of the ones who'd helped when Lisbon had fainted, and met Jane's eye now with a sympathetic smile. 'I'll give you some privacy,' she said kindly. 'You can't hold her, sorry, she's too delicate for that, but I'll leave one of the access windows open for you.' Passing them silently, she left them in a darkness that was broken only by a concentrated light in the centre of the room, shining down on a transparent glass structure surrounded by an assortment of monitors and machines. Lisbon took a step forward, and when he didn't do the same she turned back toward him; frozen, shaky, he took a breath and let her lead him slowly across the room.

A few moments later, they stopped beside the structure. And the world fell away.

Her hair was raven black, as Jane had imagined; scattered in thin tufts across the top of her head, and so soft-looking that it seemed if one reached out a finger they would not feel it; her eyes were closed, pale eyelids over fine, delicate eyelashes, and if the description had ceased there then it would appear she was only sleeping, and there was nothing wrong at all. But Jane was too much of a visual person to ignore the tubes, the ones stretching in every direction, out of her nose, her mouth, her arm, and finding their way through the glass to those intimidating machines surrounding them. And once he'd noticed it, he couldn't stop tearing his eyes back to the red line around her neck, the place where the umbilical cord had done its work. It was horror and sadness and guilt that befell him in that moment, emotions that once upon a time he'd been used to but now they just made him grip Lisbon's hand all the more tightly. All the more desperately.

The tiny arm closest to their side of the glass stretched out toward them, the fingers naturally curled a little, a loose band attached to her wrist with her name scrawled on it in marker. Slowly, with the hand that wasn't clasped onto his, Lisbon reached carefully through the open access window and traced a gentle thumb from the tip of Emma's middle finger to the bottom of her palm, the little hand not once moving against hers. The action flew Jane's mind back to the ultrasound, back to those fingers curled like flower petals on the screen, but whereas that memory was pure and untouchable this one felt only empty. And in one sudden rush it all became too much, and the warmth of her hand too little; disentangling his fingers, he moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, her back against his front and his chin on her shoulder as the first tears finally broke through. But unlike normal tears which gave a person some relief, the hopelessness increased with each moment passed and yet Jane couldn't stop crying once he'd begun, the pain too great, too overwhelming for composure to fight its way back. With the hand that had held his, Lisbon grasped his wrist gently in comfort, leaning backward into him, and her words broke the quiet.

'Emma, honey,' and there was a tremor in her voice, 'I know it's hard, but please, you've got to fight, okay? You have so _much_ to live for.' Bleakly, Jane felt her hand shake against his wrist and her throat spasm as she swallowed; he opened his eyes to see the glint of the tears on her cheeks, and yet somehow she spoke through them. 'Your Mom and Dad, we love you so much, and you've got a beautiful big brother who's been so excited to meet you.' She paused, visibly fighting the pain inside, then murmured, 'And your Dad, Em, he's already lost a little girl…you can't let him lose another one, you just can't.' Ever so softly, she brushed the back of her hand down Emma's face, and it was only when she'd pulled her arm back out of the access window that she turned in his hold and buried her face in his neck, her sobs racking through them both.

For the most part, Jane had cried all of his tears and so in that moment he felt no-one's sadness but hers, sharing it with her, glancing over the top of her head to those closed eyes, that small hand, and dazedly wondering why the terrible things always seemed to happen to the people who'd been through enough. They stayed in the same anguished embrace for a very long time; eventually, she'd cried all her tears as well and shifted her head so that he felt her quivering breath against his neck. He kissed her warmly through her hair and she mumbled darkly, 'It's my fault.'

'No, it's not.'

'It is. I'm the one who fainted.'

'I'm the one who didn't catch you,' he whispered, and she had no answer to that.

They didn't leave the room at all that night, and though there was surely some sort of rule against it and a nurse came in every half-hour to address the monitors, no-one tried to make them go. They didn't eat, were too numb to feel things as pointless as hunger; after their quiet admittances of guilt there were no more words and not once, not even for a second, did they let go of each other. The thought made Jane sick with fear, knowing without a doubt that he'd suffocate if he wasn't holding her, knowing she felt the same, and so the hours dragged past in identical tones of dormancy and in this time they barely existed.

It wasn't until very early in the morning that Lisbon finally fell asleep, curled in Jane's lap on the floor, his back against the wall and his arms around her in exactly the same way they would be around Seph after a nightmare. Wearily, he supposed that there wasn't much difference. But while she drifted in and out of unconsciousness, he never even considered sleep for a single moment; it was in his nature, insomnia through darkness, and now was not the time to change that. Besides, over the last couple of hours he'd gained a fierce determination to make sure that if something happened in that glass cage, good or bad, he would see it. Whether it helped or not, he bluntly refused to let another daughter fight for life without him.

He'd never even slightly believed in God, but perhaps, in the same way he'd softened Lisbon at the edges, she'd given him some sort of dimly lit faith.

Because that night, for the first time in his life, he prayed.

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><p><strong>I'm going away for four days tomorrow, so I won't get to write the last chapter until I get back-sorry to keep you waiting at such a horrible place, but I really hope you liked this one.<strong>

**TAJ :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**I just cannot believe this is the last chapter; I don't want it to be, I just want to keep on writing Seph forever, but the story ends here, sadly. Thank you so very, very much to everyone who has read, reviewed, alerted and favourited this story; I would never have written this without your support. This one's a little tricky; it starts eight years after the last chapter, then returns to where the last chapter left off, then returns to the future. I hope that's clear. I also really hope you like this; it doesn't end how it was originally going to, but that's okay.**

**Disclaimer: Seph is mine, and he always will be :)**

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><p><strong>Eight Years Later.<strong>

'Mom, what're you doing?'

It was as if Lisbon had been sitting there in darkness, and someone had turned on the light; blinking once, twice, she felt an uncomfortable rush as what had been so real to her only moments ago-the memory of her second pregnancy-began to sink back down onto the pages of the photo album. Her eyes grazing the old photographs, she fought the voice dragging her back to full consciousness but it was too late for that, the damage already done, and eventually she glanced over silently to Seph in the doorway.

'Mom?' he repeated himself, and it was only then that his question filtered through.

'I'm just looking through some things I found up in the attic,' she replied, smiling softly. 'From when you were little. Do you want to see?' He hesitated, then shrugged and wandered over to the bed; as he sat down, and Lisbon passed over the box, she found herself wondering not for the first time where the years had gone. Because it wasn't her sweet little six-year-old sifting through the box's contents, whom she remembered so vividly: she had memories of the past eight years as evidence, confirmation that they had, in fact, both aged, and while she'd long ago accepted that she was nearer to fifty than was comfortable she still couldn't quite make herself believe that Seph was fourteen.

'Baby name book,' he stated, holding up the dogeared paperback.

'You have no idea how long it took us to choose Joseph,' she said.

'Yeah, Aunt Grace said you and Dad used to argue a lot.' Lisbon didn't answer him, only smiled in admittance as she remembered that time so long ago. Years full of frustration and pain and vengeance, years so very different to the ones they flew through now, and she would have felt the relief in that fact for longer but then Seph lifted his old deck of cards from the box and she fell silent, watching the nostalgia on his face. He hadn't touched a playing card of any sort since he was six.

'Why'd you stop?' she asked carefully, and the softness faded instantly to a nonchalance only teenagers could perfect.

'It doesn't matter,' he mumbled.

'Of course it _matters_,' she pressed, meeting his gaze and holding it, and after a moment a muted anger crossed his face.

'Because…because it's not _real_,' he confessed quietly, his shoulders hunched and his defences down, for once. 'The whole 'magic' thing, it's not really magic. It's just lying to people.' She'd had her reassuring response written and ready until she heard his last sentence, and her words disintegrated. If there was one thing that had remained unchanged in Seph from when he was little, it was his almost desperate need for honesty, a trait that had developed a few months after he'd learnt the truth about his father: she looked away then, plagued by the guilt she didn't think she'd ever stop feeling, and he must have taken pity on her because there was the sound of more rummaging and then he murmured, 'I remember this photo.'

It was the picture of them, Jane and Connie that had graced Lisbon's bedside for the better part of five years, before the one of them all at her wedding-Cho, Jim, Grace, Rigsby and the twins included-had come to replace it. Dazedly, she wondered how it had found its way up to the attic, but most of her was simply thankful for the distraction and as she spoke she could feel herself sinking back down into her memories again, little by little.

'Rigsby took that picture, you know, and it was on your…'

'I _know_, Mom,' he cut her off in annoyance, 'I remember you telling me, like, a thousand times. It was on my birthday, I was four, Connie was only a month old and it was about a year before you had Emma.' She'd known immediately what section of his sentence would choke him up, fasten his eyes like nails to the frame in his hands and bring the emotion to linger on his face. Sighing wistfully, she placed a hand briefly on his shoulder and felt the usual sadness tug at her heart, but kept it locked down.

'Seph, I know it's sad,' she told him gently, 'but sooner or later you've got to let go. Just because she's gone doesn't mean you are.'

'But why'd she _have _to go?' he asked, with a quiver in his voice she knew he'd loathe. 'What did we do wrong?'

'I don't think we did anything wrong, honey,' she said, her words carefully measured over the despondency, 'but you can't let it haunt you. Maybe it's nothing to do with us at all; maybe God just needed her back.'

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><p><strong>Present Day (The Next Morning)<strong>

'Reese,' she heard, soft in her ear, and for the shortest of seconds she felt only the warmth of his arms around her, coating her in a blissful calm. But then, as her eyes fluttered open to the blinding white of the hospital walls, it came floating back to her why he was holding her in the first place and the world once again turned dark. As the guilt and fear sank back down under her skin, she found his hand and tugged his arm out from around her so she could hold it, calmed a little by the sureness of his grip. And it was only then that she noticed a nurse gazing down at them-she was the same nurse that had given them some privacy last night, but the fact offered no comfort.

'Sorry to wake you both,' she said, 'but there's something you need to see.'

Her words crashed down upon Lisbon like a court sentencing, a final ultimatum, and suddenly the fear accelerated into a terror matched only by what she'd felt when Red John had held Seph; raging, roaring, she choked back a loud sob and over the top of it all burned Dr Neeson's words-'_if she makes it through the night…if she makes it through the night…_' The world had made it through the night, morning sunlight bathing the room, but she was completely incapable of glancing over to the glass structure, petrified at the thought that not all of the world had made it, and found herself staring at the young nurse. Balancing on a moment that determined the rest of their lives, praying for some sort of emotion to flicker on her features, some sort of clue. Praying for it not to be sympathy.

The nurse regarded their faces for a long time.

And then she smiled.

Lisbon didn't remember her feet finding the floor. She didn't remember standing upright, nor could she recall the steps she took to the middle of the room: she surely must have done all of these things, though, because one moment she was on the ground and the next she and Jane were standing beside the glass cage, and there were a pair of dazzlingly green eyes peering up at them curiously. Emma surveyed them for a few seconds as if gathering together her first impressions, the tubes having vanished from around her, a still silence, and then her high-pitched gurgle cut through the quiet and her tiny hand reached into the air, as if feeling for something no-one else could see.

And then Lisbon was shaking, the tears not as free-flowing as they'd been the night before but so much less painful, no longer lined with fear but with never-ending waves of relief that spun and spun inside her until she was dizzy. She turned to Jane, and before she could even move towards him his arms were around her once more; it wasn't a comforting embrace, though, so much as a two-way reassurance that they weren't seeing things, that the little girl laying there was really theirs, that she'd really made it through the night. After hours of nightmares, tears and fear and hopelessness, the bottom line was slow to process but when it did it sent an exultant grin across her face, an expression she thought she might keep on forever, and when she opened her eyes the world had found its colours again.

'She's a real fighter, this one,' the nurse informed them. 'I'll get her out so you can hold her.'

'Your turn,' Lisbon murmured as the nurse slowly disassembled the glass, and when Jane hesitated in confusion she added, 'to hold her. I held Seph last time, remember?' She felt him nod against her and pulled back just enough to see him smile.

'Oh, that reminds me,' the nurse interjected, 'your support crew arrived while you were asleep. They don't know anything; Dr Neeson thought you would want to do the honours.' She said this whilst lifting Emma gently up and out of the structure, into a blanket, and so Lisbon barely heard it-only saw her daughter's eyes clasp onto hers and took a half-step back from Jane so that the baby girl could be given over to her Daddy. He held her like Seph had held Lucy, like if the slightest breeze came it would break her, and gazing down with those very same captivated eyes.

'Hello, Em,' he whispered; at his words, her hand reached up into the air and she found what she was looking for within moments, her fingers curling around his thumb. With her head resting lightly on Jane's shoulder, Lisbon watched them play their beautiful little games and the sight brought out one last tear to slip discreetly down her cheek. It would amaze her for the rest of her life, how her family was made up of so many broken, dysfunctional pieces and yet somehow, when shoved together, it all seemed to work. But the picture was not yet complete, she realised suddenly. There was someone missing.

'I'm going to get Seph,' she uttered, and when he nodded she lifted her head from his shoulder and started for the doorway, passing another familiar nurse who announced at her back that Emma needed to undergo some simple tests, 'for procedure's sake'. Half-turning, she watched Jane reluctantly hand the little girl back over with an expression she couldn't quite pinpoint at first; after a moment, though, the truth hit her with an odd clarity-it was happiness, and only that, pure and simple and brighter than she'd ever seen him wear. There was no Red John, no trace of hate or anger or even the recent fear anywhere in his eyes. Patrick Jane stood before her not as someone else had carved him but as he was meant to be, as he should have been his whole life.

And it occurred to her that she'd forgotten to do something.

He caught her eye as she approached, and his lips parted as if to question her presence but then she breathed, 'Close your eyes,' and after a moment he did so. Slowly, tenderly, she brushed the skin of her palms past his wrists and to his elbows, smiling as her touch made him shiver; reaching his shoulders, she took a firmer hold as she ran her fingers through his curls, then cupped his face in her hands and inwardly marvelled at the rough, unshaved texture of his jaw. He had, after all, not been home in twenty-four hours. Lisbon inhaled carefully, and then felt the horribly familiar jolt of panic as her walls rose to protect her; however, whereas a few months ago she would push him away, now she only ignored her instincts, leant over and pressed her lips to his.

Jane's arms didn't circle around her, his head didn't tilt to the side; he didn't even kiss her back, somehow knowing that she needed to do this herself. And when she pulled back a while later he remained unmoving, the only change a ghost of a smile on his lips he seemed unable to hide. Taking his hands, she pulled them behind her to clasp together around her waist and then snaked her arms around his neck. It was only when she nudged his nose with hers that he opened his eyes, and whether he knew it or not his hold tightened around her, and she smiled again.

'If we…' she paused, her words sounding strange in what was once a silence, and then she said, 'if we take it slowly. Day by day. I think that'd be really good.' He said nothing, but his gaze was holding hers as if nothing in the world could tear him away and she took that as an agreement. She continued, 'And if I try to run away…'

'I won't let you,' he finished.

'Right answer.' His grin in response blinded her for a moment, as she knew it always would, and then she added, 'you can kiss me back now, if you want.'

'You sure?'

'Yeah.'

And he did.

* * *

><p><strong>Eight Years Later.<strong>

_'I don't think we did anything wrong, honey,' she said, her words carefully measured over the despondency, 'but you can't let it haunt you. Maybe it's nothing to do with us at all; maybe God just needed her back.' _

'But why would heaven want a dog?' Seph asked, his fingers tracing the top-left hand side of the picture.

'Well,' Lisbon answered him carefully, 'she wasn't just any ordinary old dog, was she.' She didn't get a response, but was honestly surprised she'd opened him up this much and thus didn't really care, only felt the sympathy shine from her like it had once upon a time shone for Jane. After being inseparable since he was four, Connie had died two weeks ago: nine years old, despite that the vet had been adamant she would live to fifteen, and this one fact had cast a shadow of guilt over him ever since.

'Seph, you can't blame yourself,' she told him firmly, wanting his gaze but it refused to waver from the photo. 'Your Dad'll be the first one to tell you that. It isn't your fault.' There was a moment in which she thought he hadn't heard her, but then he returned the photo to the box and looked up.

'I'm fine, Mom,' he told her, 'I'm alright. Stop worrying.' And he smiled the smile she knew all too well, and all of a sudden she could see the six-year-old in him, in the knowing green of his eyes and the warmth in his gaze; it was as if she were back in her memories, and the sudden nostalgia brought emotion up to rest in her throat. She might have told him this, or he might have brought them back to their usual erratic mother-son relationship with a careless one-liner, but then came the sudden thumping down the hallway and a second later the door flew open.

'_Mooommmm_,' Emma whined as she burst into the room, 'Andy keeps pressing the keys while I'm trying to play again, I told him to stop it but he didn't _listen_…'

'Em, for the last time,' she interrupted, 'he's only doing it because he wants to be like you.'

'I don't care, just make him _stop_, I'm trying to learn a song and he's driving me _insane_.'

Lisbon sighed. 'Where's Dad, why can't he do it?'

'He went shopping,' she pouted, her dark hair and expression illuminating the fierce green of her gaze. But then, as eight-year-olds often felt inclined to do, her irritation vanished without a trace and her eyes softened into a pure warmth as she looked over to her brother.

'Will you hear my song, Seph?' she asked, and when he made a face in protest she added, '_please…_'

'Fine, whatever.' She grinned, and her raven ringlets spun around her as she disappeared from the doorway, satisfied that they were both coming; Seph stood and traipsed after her, hands in his pockets, and Lisbon smiled at the truth of what had just happened. If it were any other day, any other person at the door with a request, Seph would still be sitting on the bed beside her; Emma, however, had always seemed capable of melting his edges, bending him around her many wants and wishes in ways that no-one else could. She sat there a moment longer, floating contently along the knowledge that her son hadn't changed as much as he liked to think, and then followed him out into the living room.

She heard the clashing of random piano keys before she saw Andy, just tall enough to see over the keys, and Emma, arms impatiently crossed, the exasperation back on her face. Passing Seph, who had flopped into the armchair, Lisbon softened her last few footsteps and took her youngest by surprise; squealing in delight, he let her wrap her arms around him from behind and carry him to the couch. As Emma regained her seat on the piano stool, Lisbon turned Andy around to face her and told him softly, 'No more playing piano while Em is, okay?'

'But I _wanna_,' he sulked, and she ran a lazy hand through his dark blonde curls; if he hadn't inherited those famous green eyes, she often mused, he would be the spitting image of his Dad, which she doubted was a good thing but for now made him look like an angel.

'You will one day, honey,' she promised him, and as she pulled him gently onto her lap Emma began to play and Lisbon watched Seph's face, something she loved to do. She might see glimpses of the past in his face, in unexpected moments or in rare conversations like the one she'd just shared with him, but the sound of piano never failed to drag all the years and shadows from his face until he was six again, his eyes shining with the very same captivation as they had when he'd held Emma that morning in Intensive Care. He'd been so gentle, so careful, just like his Dad had been, and four years later when Andy was born it had been a beautiful thing to discover that neither of her boys had lost their tenderness. Her eyes had fluttered closed, drawn into calm by the tranquility of Emma's song, and when her fingers came to rest on the final chord Lisbon weaved her fingers through Andy's and clapped their hands together.

'Wow, Em,' she smiled, and Emma spun around on the stool to grin at her, but it was her older brother's approval she wanted the most and when Seph announced that it was 'awesome' her eyes shone in jubilation.

'Getting better every day, you are,' she heard from behind her, and smiled at the oh-so-familiar voice as Andy twisted in her lap and squealed, 'Dad!'

Jane passed them both to set his shopping bag down on the coffee table, rummaging through it lazily as he spoke. 'Pop Tarts, Em, yeah?' he said, and when she nodded he threw the bag at her, then reached back down into the bag and muttered, almost to himself, 'Seph, you wanted chips,' he gave him those, 'and Andy, I've forgotten, what was it that you wanted?'

'_Candy_ bar!' the boy replied, and after a long moment he produced the chocolate from behind his back, and got another squeal; Andy's fingers wrapped greedily around the plastic and after she'd torn it open for him he found his feet and wandered over to the trashcan in the kitchen. Clasping onto Jane's gaze, she smiled in greeting and he leant down to kiss her warmly; when their lips broke apart, he pressed their foreheads together for the briefest of moments, then claimed his place on the couch beside her. Automatically, Lisbon shifted to lie on her back with her head against the side of his leg and her feet dangling over the edge of the couch.

'Did you get my…'

'Of course,' he said, and promptly dropped the bag of lollipops on her head. Laughing, she blindly reached up a hand to swat at him as her other hand freed her face; as she regained her sight, the very first thing she saw was him, and for a long moment she could not look away. He was a little greyer than in her memories; a little older, a little wiser, but it was still those beautiful blue eyes of his and that smile she'd been right about, the one that still caught and held her for as long as it existed.

Slowly, tenderly, he draped his arm around her and let his hand rest on her stomach; and inside, past the tiny life they were still six months from meeting, there was no resistance, no urge to recoil from his touch. No guilt, no fear.

Her walls had been down for eight years.

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><p><strong>Just some facts I couldn't fit into the text: Andy is named after Lisbon's brother, who died from cancer. Grace and Rigsby's twins are both fine, and if it wasn't clear from my description of the picture on Lisbon's bedside table, Jane and Lisbon got married.<strong>

**Thank you for reading; please review, even if you haven't reviewed any of the other chapters; I'd love it if you dropped by and told me what you thought. I'm a first-year uni student as of tomorrow (eek!) so I don't know when I'll be able to start a new story, but I don't doubt that I will eventually, because I love fan fiction too Goddamn much to quit now.**

**God bless you all.**

**TAJ :)**


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